Jane_Eyre

Depending on what the interpretation of “feminist” is, many answers can be given. If for instance it means the equality to men, then it is not possible because in the Victorian Age women were in a lower position than men and not treated the same as men. Not only in England but in almost all the countries during that Age all women were supposed to stay under the men’s shelter to cook, clean and offer whatever men wanted from them. They did not even have the right to vote back then, nor were they allowed to be educated in schools or universities. After a feminist named Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, in the eighteenth-century it influenced many people and today things have changed and women now almost have the same rights as men, but not quite. Jane Eyre can be considered a feminist novel when we see that even though she knows the consequences, nothing stops her from her will and always does what she wants even though it was not possible during that Age. There is nothing that can stop Jane from fulfilling her objectives which is how we notice her strong will and independence, in spite of the Age she is living in. Though she could just settle she prefers choosing the hard way as long as she is able to accomplish what she has in her mind. The Victorian Age could have been a very unfair and discriminative era, but it was not strong enough to beat Jane’s will. Most women in the Victorian Age could only gain power only by getting married to a man in a high social class, but Jane did not. During the Victorian Age the parents of the women would most likely set a meeting for each other with a view of marriage and would try to force them to like each other. Nowadays many women get married though they do not really love the man they are married to. They do not need their parents to set up the meetings for them, from the moment they see wealth in a man they would stick to them like leeches. The way of thinking towards marriage and the system has changed so much lately, that they do not look for love anymore but for wealth. How could you possibly marry somebody for his money and not because of love' The world we live in today is very absurd, complex and everybody is blinded by their greed, unlike Jane who believes that marriage should be done only when there is love and loyalty involved within a relationship. Another fundamental point is that Jane, no matter how strong her love is towards Mr. Rochester she clearly does not want anything to do with a married person including having affairs, and by leaving Thornfield she sacrifices her love for their own good. Charlotte Bronte has a very unique way of incorporating elements of the Gothic Tradition into the Novel. Instead of just letting us notice these elements she uses mysterious characters, locations and leaves the reader to interpret these mysteries the way he or she wants to. The parts where Charlotte Bronte gives us the goose bumps or the tension are the elements of Gothic tradition and it begins from the very beginning of the story in Gateshead. The hatred shown by the Reeds towards Jane and vice versa are meant to be Gothic because normally if you are an adult relative, you never treat your niece or nephew in that way no matter how bad the situation, but Charlotte shows us that anything is possible. A young girl not even a teenager yet, experiencing emotions such as hatred from her relatives, abuse and tricks from her cousins and even listening to lies can only be explained as Gothic elements and nothing else. The Red Room is another Gothic element concerning a room with red curtains and carpets. Red could represent love, but also represents death and symbolizes blood. This is the room where Mr.Reed took his last breathe, and locking up a child in a room so dark, chill and spooky is a very evil act. Jane seeing her dead Uncle Reed’s ghostly image and being haunted whenever something bad happens to her is another element. When Jane meets her love Mr. Rochester for the first time disguised as a fortune teller riding a horse, and his dog Pilot running shows us another element because she had heard some mysterious stories before she experienced what she had heard. Charlotte Bronte also uses a few mysterious Characters to incorporate Gothic tradition, such as Jane’s Uncle “John Eyre”, who leaves her a fortune of 20,000 pounds while she was at Lowood, and never appears on the scene after that. Charlotte mentions nothing else but the fact that he left her a fortune and keeps it a mystery. While staying at Thornfield she often heard a goblin like laugh which turns out to be Mr.Rochester laughing at Grace Poole. As well as Mr. Rochester’s secret crazy wife who is locked up in the attic is the most important Gothic element of all. Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” contains uncountable Gothic elements rather than love elements and from the very start until the end is a pure frightening novel and leaves us with our mouths open. I believe that all these names are very rare and hardly heard in our modern society. Just by hearing these names, the first thing that comes to our heads is the Victorian Age in England. The name “Jane” is just like any other name similar to the names such as Janet, Janice, Jeanne, Joan, which are all feminine names that can be heard quite often in England or America. In many movies we notice that the unknown females without identification go by the name Jane Doe, which shows us that it is a typical girl’s name that is used even in the hospitals. Jane’s sir name “Eyre” is very unique and this might have some connections with the word “Air” which is something natural just like the wind, essential just like her role in the story, invisible because she keeps on moving around from one place to another and life giving because she gives a second chance to herself by going to school and trying to become a different person. The word “Heir” might also have something to do with her sir name, because it sounds similar. We could interpret it to heritage, assets, property, continuity or estate because she was supposed to inherit property of some kind before her father passed away, but instead she was given the worst of all. Depending on how an individual interprets this, the name “Jane Eyre” can symbolize or mean many different things. The names of the locations such as Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield are given for a specific purpose. There is a steel sculpture of an angel with outstretched wings, created in 1998 by British sculptor Antony Gormley, which stands on a hilltop outside Gateshead known as the “Angel of the North”. This is where the Reed family’s house is and we could interpret Jane being the “Angel” and starting her life after she enters the gates of her life. Lowood is where Jane goes to school and Thornfield is a place where she accepts a governess position and she starts her new life. It could be symbolized as a field of thorns meaning that she has to go through a field of spiky thorns or many physical or mental hardships to reach her destination. Miss Temple is a good-hearted teacher at Lowood who helps Jane and the other girls with many of their issues. A Temple is an ancient shrine where Gods used to live and rule over humans and because of this, humans always respected temples thinking them as the Gods’ homes. The respect these humans showed towards the Temple is the same as Jane and the other girls showing respect towards their teacher Miss Temple. Jane is a likeable protagonist especially to women reading this novel. In fact she is the wonder-woman of the Victorian Age because just like mentioned before she is a strong independent woman who is capable of doing things that others would never even dream of doing. She is an outstanding unique woman who always fights for her rights no matter the circumstances or the consequences. She is a character who likes to express everything out loud and would never talk behind people’s backs but rather say it out in front of them. Many beautiful feminine characters appear in this novel but though we do not have a detailed description of Jane’s appearance, we could just assume that she is average looking. Since she was able to get Mr. Rochester’s heart and attention, and after all Mr. Rochester had many relationships with beautiful women. Personally I did not like Jane in the beginning, but as I got deeper into the story I started liking her because she is very cool as a character and very open to many things. This characteristic as we know, is not very common and must surely have constraints in the Victorian Age, but still does what she wants. The picture book Jane was looking at in the first chapter focuses mainly on the natural elements such as the rain, sea, moon, etc. She describes these pictures in very complex hard ways that people have a hard time understanding. The book says that in the “Northern Ocean has giant whirls boiled round the deserted sad island of the farthest Thule and the Atlantic strong rain pours among the stormy Hebrides” (My own interpretation of the text in the book page.4). These are words that a ten year old child would have a hard time understanding, but she manages to interpret it and convert them into her own words. The description she gives is more realistic and sounds even more intelligent than the original text. Her imagination is way above average, because she herself said that each picture told a story and she gives us an exact description of the picture, that we can actually picture it in our heads while reading it. Jane mainly refers to the weather and all the four natural elements (Fire, Earth, Water, Wind) are included in her descriptions. There are three water-colours (paintings) of Jane’s that are presented to Mr. Rochester in Thornfield. Jane says that she saw these paintings with a spiritual eye before embodying them. The first painting represented clouds that were low and angry rolling over a swollen sea and a gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, where a dark and large seabird was sitting, with wings flecked with foam. The seabird’s beak held a gold bracelet with gems and sinking below the bird and mast, the corpse of a dead person was seen through the green water and the only help given was a limb but finally the bird died and the bracelet was lost. Jane’s descriptions don’t make any sense to us but if we look deep into it we realize that even in her first painting she focuses in details on the weather and after describes the bird and the bracelet.