GCSE · English Literature · AQA · Spec 8702

Jane Eyre: gender and independence

A governess tells her employer, 'I am a free human being with an independent will.' Minutes later he says, 'I have her, and will hold her.' So who won?

Jane Eyre · Gender and independence

Does Jane win her independence?

The claim

Jane Eyre is a woman who wins her independence.

Place each piece of evidence to load the balance. Mark the strong ones — they count double.

  1. 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 1: does it support or challenge the claim?

  2. 'Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 2: does it support or challenge the claim?

  3. 'I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you—let me go!' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 3: does it support or challenge the claim?

  4. Rochester: 'And your will shall decide your destiny' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 4: does it support or challenge the claim?

  5. Later in the novel, Jane inherits money of her own before she returns to Rochester.

    Evidence 5: does it support or challenge the claim?

  6. 'me who have not a friend in the world but you—if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?' … 'I have no kindred to interfere.' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 6: does it support or challenge the claim?

  7. Rochester: 'I must have you for my own—entirely my own.' … 'I have her, and will hold her.' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 7: does it support or challenge the claim?

  8. 'the wider ocean—wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved.' (Chapter XXIII)

    Evidence 8: does it support or challenge the claim?

Exam line: Don't just agree or disagree. Say how far — then prove it by setting a line FOR against a line AGAINST from the same scene.

Dependent — then and now

The child at Gateshead (Chapter I)vsThe governess at Thornfield (Chapter XXIII)

Read across each row. What has changed for Jane, and what hasn't?

Focus

Who she depends on

The child at Gateshead (Chapter I)

Her aunt, Mrs Reed. John Reed says she wears 'clothes at our mama’s expense'.

The governess at Thornfield (Chapter XXIII)

Her employer, Rochester, who decides that she 'must get a new situation'.

The insight

A different house and a different master — but someone else still decides where she lives.

The word used for her

The child at Gateshead (Chapter I)

'you are a dependent, mama says'

The governess at Thornfield (Chapter XXIII)

'your responsible and dependent position'

Money

The child at Gateshead (Chapter I)

'you have no money; your father left you none'

The governess at Thornfield (Chapter XXIII)

'not a shilling but what you have given me'

How she answers

The child at Gateshead (Chapter I)

An outburst: 'You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!'

The governess at Thornfield (Chapter XXIII)

An argument: 'Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings?'

Chapter XII · Close reading

The argument from the rooftop

Jane has climbed up to the roof of Thornfield — 'the leads' — to look out. Tap each highlighted phrase and watch a private mood become a public argument.

… I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen … Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer … I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; … to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XII

Focus a highlighted phrase to read its analysis.

Reading “a power of vision which might overpass that limit”

Image of sight and distance

What to notice

She is on the roof, staring at the sky-line — and wishing she could see past it.

Effect

The 'limit' is the edge of the view, but it is also the edge of her life. What she wants is simply more world: 'towns, regions full of life'.

Meaning

Her first wish in this passage is not for love or money. It is to see and know more.

Focused phrase “a power of vision which might overpass that limit”. technique Image of sight and distance. She is on the roof, staring at the sky-line — and wishing she could see past it.. effect: The 'limit' is the edge of the view, but it is also the edge of her life. What she wants is simply more world: 'towns, regions full of life'.. meaning: Her first wish in this passage is not for love or money. It is to see and know more.

Watch out: Don't read 'revolt' as a call for a real uprising. Jane says there are 'rebellions besides political rebellions' — she means quiet lives straining against their limits.

Custom versus Jane

Whose voice is it?

Pick a line, then choose the voice it belongs to.

Still to sort

The voice of custom (0)

What Jane — or women in general — are told they should be.

Where the line is: A line can be written by Jane and still be custom's voice, when she is reporting what others expect.

Jane's own voice (0)

Jane claiming something custom does not allow her.

Where the line is: It isn't enough that Jane says it. The line has to push against what she is told she should be.

7 of 7 still to sort.

Every line below comes from the novel. Decide whether it speaks for custom — what Jane, or women, are told they should be — or for Jane's own claim beyond it.

Watch out: Don't sort by speaker. Jane sometimes writes custom's words down in order to attack them.

Context · Voices around the novel

What should a heroine — and the woman who writes her — be?

Switch between the voices. Notice that every one of them comes with a name attached.

What should a heroine — and a woman who writes one — be?

Charlotte Brontë, as her friend Gaskell records

Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, quoting an obituary article on Brontë

  • Her sisters were wrong — 'even morally wrong' — to make their heroines beautiful 'as a matter of course'.
  • She decided to make her heroine 'plain, small, and unattractive, in defiance of the accepted canon'.
'I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.''but she is not myself, any further than that.'

Her sisters, in the same account

Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

  • A heroine has to be beautiful: 'it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms'.

The Quarterly Review, December 1848

Quoted by Gaskell, who calls it 'the stabbing cruelty of the judgment'

  • The reviewer made 'gossiping conjectures' about who the unknown author, 'Currer Bell', really was.
  • Of the unknown woman who might have written it: 'She must be one who for some sufficient reason has long forfeited the society of her sex'.

Gaskell, on how Brontë wrote

Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

  • When the story came clear to her, 'all her care was to discharge her household and filial duties, so as to obtain leisure to sit down and write'.
  • Once the story reached Thornfield, 'she could not stop'.

Compare the positions, then weigh them yourself.

How to use these voices

None of these is the novel itself. Use a voice to sharpen a point about Jane's own words — and always name whose view it is.

Comparing 4 positions: Charlotte Brontë, as her friend Gaskell records, Her sisters, in the same account, The Quarterly Review, December 1848, Gaskell, on how Brontë wrote.

Watch out: Always say whose view it is. 'Victorians thought…' turns one reviewer's opinion into a fact it never was.

WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED

A quick recap of today's lesson.

What you need to know

  • In Chapter XXIII Jane claims freedom and equality: 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me' and 'I have as much soul as you'.
  • The same scene shows what stands against her: 'not a shilling but what you have given me', 'I have no kindred', 'wealth, caste, custom', and Rochester's 'I have her, and will hold her.'
  • Jane is 'a dependent' as a child at Gateshead and in a 'dependent position' as a governess: her situation barely changes, but her answer to it does.
  • In Chapter XII she turns her restlessness into a claim about all women: 'women feel just as men feel' and need 'a field for their efforts'.
  • The context is a set of named voices — Brontë's plain heroine as Gaskell records it, and the Quarterly Review's 1848 attack — not general facts about women.

The big picture

Jane Eyre makes some of the boldest claims to freedom and equality of any heroine you'll meet — 'no net ensnares me', 'I have as much soul as you'. But the same scenes show her with no money of her own, no family, the word 'dependent' following her from childhood, and a man who wants her 'entirely' his own. This lesson reads her Chapter XII argument about women, sorts the voice of custom from Jane's own, and weighs the evidence so you can reach your own judgement: how far does Jane win her independence?

Key points

1Independence in this novel is argued, not simply won: Jane's words run ahead of her circumstances.
2Custom is the recurring enemy — in Mrs Reed's rules, in 'making puddings and knitting stockings', in 'wealth, caste, custom'.
3Jane's answers grow from a child's outburst ('you are like a slave-driver') into a woman's argument ('equal,—as we are!').
4Rochester speaks two languages: 'your will shall decide your destiny' and 'entirely my own'.
5Later, Jane inherits money of her own before she returns to Rochester — her situation starts to match her words.
6Context sharpens a reading; it never replaces the quotation. Name whose view it is.

Worked example

Problem

Rochester says both 'your will shall decide your destiny' and, soon after, 'I have her, and will hold her.' Write one paragraph on what these two lines suggest about Jane's independence.

⚠ Watch out

Quoting 'I am no bird' as if it ends the argument. In the same scene Jane has 'not a shilling' of her own and Rochester says 'I have her, and will hold her.' Weigh the declaration against what the scene shows — don't quote it as proof.

🧠

Memory hook

No bird, no net … no shilling. Jane's words are free before her circumstances are.

✓

Check yourself

Without looking back: how is Jane's position at Thornfield like her position at Gateshead, and how has her answer to it changed? Use one quotation from each place.

Flashcards

(13)
Complete Jane's line: 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; …'
'…I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.' (Chapter XXIII)
What does Rochester say about Jane soon after she accepts him?
'I have her, and will hold her.' Just before, he says: 'I must have you for my own—entirely my own.'
What does Jane say she has, and hasn't, just before she accepts?
'not a friend in the world but you … not a shilling but what you have given me' — and 'I have no kindred'.
How does Jane answer the idea that a poor, plain woman must be 'soulless and heartless'?
'I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!'
Which three things does Jane say 'intervened' between her and Rochester?
'wealth, caste, custom'
Chapter XII: what do women need 'as much as their brothers do'?
'exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts'
Chapter XII: what does Jane say 'millions' are doing?
They 'are in silent revolt against their lot'.
What are the 'viewless fetters'?
Invisible chains: Jane's image for the dull, 'too still existence' waiting for her back inside Thornfield.
What does John Reed call Jane in Chapter I?
'a dependent' — 'you have no money; your father left you none'.
Until Jane 'can speak pleasantly', what does Mrs Reed tell her to do?
'remain silent'
What did the Quarterly Review (December 1848) say of the unknown woman who might have written the novel?
'She must be one who for some sufficient reason has long forfeited the society of her sex.' Gaskell calls it 'stabbing cruelty'.
According to Gaskell's account, why is Jane plain and small?
Brontë set out to prove her sisters wrong: a heroine 'as plain and as small as myself' could be as interesting as a beautiful one.
What changes Jane's money situation later in the novel?
She inherits money of her own before she returns to Rochester.

Tap any card to flip it, or use Study as deck to go through them one at a time. In the full lesson these run as a spaced-repetition deck — you rate each card Hard, Good or Easy and the tricky ones keep coming back until they stick.

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