Jane Eyre

Despite its Gothic preoccupations with mysterious ancient ruins and supernatural elements, Jane Eyre was certainly a rather progressive novel for its time period. Its criticisms of organized religion, especially in earlier chapters and especially as they relate to gender roles, would have been particularly forward-thinking for many of Brontë’s contemporaries. Later in the book, issues of class structure and upward mobility are brought to light and eventually disregarded by the protagonists. Even more specifically critical were the novel’s depictions of rampant physical and psychological abuses taking place at the Lowood girls’ school during Mr Brocklehurst’s regime there, which had the effect of painting the private Christian schools of Brontë’s day in an acutely negative light. For this reason, it is my contention that Charlotte Brontë goes further in the progressive direction than merely employing Gothic stylistic choices in her novel, also intending to criticize some of the longstanding repressive institutions of her society.

Of course, depictions of this critical nature are apparent throughout the novel, from her upbringing amongst the cruel Reed family through her career at Lowood and into her occupation as governess under Rochester. Lowood, however, has the particularity of being a religiously-founded institution intended to instruct meekness and piety unto unsuspecting girls. Such institutions, one could argue, still exist en masse today, and many of Brontë’s concerns regarding them remain true. Despite his abuses of power and authoritarian nature, Jane’s friend Helen reminds her that “Mr Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man” (82)¹. The passage represents a subversion of the social order which held pseudo-clergymen like Mr Brocklehurst in great esteem and granted them immense moral authority, as well as a direct criticism of the Christian educational institutions which Brontë seems to be so viscerally depicting.

In regards to the physical abuse she receives, it would seem Jane prefers the Old Testament “eye for an eye” than the New Testament “turn the other cheek” that Helen endorses. “When we are struck at without a reason,” she preaches, “we should strike back again very hard; […] so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again” (68).¹ Helen, the more devoted Christian of the pair, had embraced the meekness-and-mildness instructed of her by the Bible, thereby accepting her lower rung in society and tolerating any grievances which might come her way from vengeful authoritarian institutions. Jane’s more revolutionary tone, however, could indeed be lent to the entire emerging feminist movement of the time, which began to rise up against archaic gender roles and assert the necessity of women’s rights, much to the behest of certain contemporary (and current) religious institutions.