8 Reasons Why Jane Eyre Is Not The Ideal Victorian Woman

The ideal Victorian woman is beautiful, sophisticated, and obedient to her husband. These are all traits that Jane Eyre does not possess.

1. Ever since she was little, Jane Eyre was reminded of her unattractiveness, due to the importance of looks during the Victorian Era.

"You are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty as a child" - Page 78

Not much has changed. She's still an ugly duckling.

2. Before inheriting her fortune, Jane was thought as inferior compared to others due to her lack of wealth and status.

"My dearest, don't mention governess; the word makes me nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice; I thank Heaven I have now done with them!" - Page 151

Most people preferred wealth over being a governess. Poor Jane.

3. Unlike most, Jane was a lonely, unhappy girl who never had a loving family to call her own.

"'And you,' I interrupted, 'cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love'"-Page 330

"To this crib I always took my doll; human beigns must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow"-Page 23

4. Jane’s relationship with God was compromised because she began to see Mr. Rochester as her idol.

"My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for his creature: of whom i had made an idol."-Page 234

Some people think it's weird to be overly obsessed with your boyfriend.

5. Because of her status, Jane’s relationship with Rochester is very unconventional and unaccepted by society.

"I will be your neighbor, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion--to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be your eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live."-Page 370

"You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him: so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste; and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."-Page 138

Most people didn't marry their boss.

6. Because Jane was orphaned at a young age, she never received a traditional education.

"Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was; Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John Read hated his school, abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscape and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, or purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides school would be complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life. 'I should indeed like to go to school'" - Page 20

I guess one could say its uncommon for school girls to have to stand on a stool in shame in front of all her classmates.

7. Growing up as an unloved and unwealthy child, Jane did not fit society’s expectation of her character.

"No three in three thousand raw school-girl governesses would have answered me as you have just done"-Page 115

"Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman - almost a bride - was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate" - Page 252

Most women were obedient and did not sass their employers.

8. Jane Eyre was different than most Victorian women, as she was frequently visited by supernatural voices and images.

"All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travelers."-Page 11

"...for it did not seem in the room- nor in the house- nor in the garden: it did not come out of the air- nor from under the earth-nor from overhead. I had heard it- where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being- a known, loved, well-remembered voice- that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe wildly, eerily, urgently" -Page 357

One might consider it a little odd to hear your ex-fiance whisper your name when you're 50 miles away from him.

9. Picture URLs:

1. http://operachic.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c83e69e20133ed7da3f1970b-500wi

2. ‪janeaustenfilmclub.blogspot.com

3. http://veryjaneausten.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jane-eyre-2011-movie.jpg

4.http://www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/content/images/2008/02/22/jane_2006_4_465x310.jpg

5. http://novelreaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/jane_eyre_2011_1023x682_638694.jpg

6. http://english.edusites.co.uk/texts/janeeyre/index_files/janeeyreliar.jpg

7. https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ4uZC0EI296HllcSyy8bHeXf8kInC443ZyTc92-spx8qfRjoPD

8. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ejan3q7uMgY/UB0lp1HJdtI/AAAAAAAAbV4/VcXuuDA8nRs/s1600/JaneEyre1983_036Pyxurz.jpg