Jane eyer
During the Victorian era the ideal woman‟s life revolved around the
domestic sphere of her family and the home. Middle class women were brought up to “be pure and innocent, tender and sexually undemanding, submissive and obedient” to fit the glorified “Angel in the House”, the Madonna-image of the time (Lundén et al, 147). A woman had no rights of her own and; she was expected to marry and become the servant of her husband. Few professions other than that of a governess were open to educated women of the time who needed a means to support themselves. Higher education was considered wasted on women because they were considered mentally inferior to men and moreover, work was believed to make them ill. The education of women consisted of learning to sing, dance, and play the piano, to draw, read, write, some arithmetic and French and to do embroidery (Lundén et al 147). Girls were basically educated to be on display as ornaments. Women were not expected to express opinions of their own outside a very limited range of subjects, and certainly not be on a quest for own identity and aim to become independent such as the protagonist in Charlotte Brontë‟s Jane Eyre. When Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre she used a pseudonym that did not reveal the sex of the author, the name she used was Currer Bell, a name not distinctly masculine and yet not feminine. The reviews were positive and the novel became a bestseller. There was much speculation on who was behind the name Currer Bell and some more negative reviews started coming when it became known that there was a female author behind the name. To some critics it was inappropriate for a female writer to write such a passionate novel and to have some knowledge of sexuality. Charlotte Brontë wrote in the preface of the second edition „Conventionality is not morality‟ to defend her novel against the critics. The character Jane Eyre can be seen as an unconventional female of the time, she is passionate and...