Thursday, October 19, 2017
Was this book made show the faults of the class structure Victorian Era?
There is a lot of subtle hints of Bronte's views of the class structure. The first one is the differences between wealth. This is demonstrated with Mrs. Reed and young Jane Eyre. Mrs. Reed is a terrible person to Jane because Jane wasn't as wealthy as Mrs. Reed. Through the eyes of young Jane, the reader discovers how harsh and how ridiculous people treated others due to wealth. Jane is treated a dog, and she was punished brutally for actions she didn't commit. Another example of this is when Jane Eyre learns the true identity of Miss. Fairfax. Jane learns that Miss. Fairfax is a "dependent" like herself; moreover, when Jane thought that Miss. Fairfax was superior in wealth, Jane was surprised that Miss. Fairfax treated her nicely. Both these examples present the terrible treatment of the higher class to the lower class. Bronte may be showing the people of the time that wealth classes created hate. A man named Fredrick Engels observed that the working class neighborhoods were separated from the wealthy to conceal the working class's misery. This presents the idea that maybe the wealthy thought that the working class deserved misery. What do you think?
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I agree with that and another example of the wealth one is when Jane went to Lowood, you could definitely see the difference between the students and Mr. Brocklehurst's daughters; right after he gets done telling all of the students that they don't need all of this fancy and expensive stuff, his daughters stroll in wearing all of their fancy clothing and their hair all dolled up. I do agree that the people with less money get treated completely different then the wealthy people. I think that the wealthy people thought that the lower class people should look up to them.
ReplyDeleteI thought about doing courtship/marriage, but eventually settled on autobiogrphy. But something I learned while reading about the courtship 'rituals' of the victorian age really struck out to me. If you were a young man of a higher cast or rank than a young woman who was interested in you, she would have to mention her interest in you, find a mutual friend of the two of you, get that friend to ask you if you were okay with being introduced, and only then were you allowed to do any sort of talking. And if you did marry that woman of lower class, then you would have been seen as a man who married poorly. That seems very unfair to me.
ReplyDeleteI can see what you were going for with that Micheal. I agree heavily. With Mrs. Fairfax and Jane, that scene was a great one to see that once you are equal to someone they treat you differently. Jane felt she was below her, until Fairfax made it clear they were equal.
ReplyDeleteI think that this makes for a great essay topic! Jane begins her life in a lower social class because of her mothers choice of marrying into a poor family. Then she ends up going to Lowood and is below the teacher because she is a female, and eventually to Thornfield where she is still treated poorly because of her class and gender. I think that I could make good use of this topic. I really like the points you brought up like Jane knowing she's not "equal" to others. Though it seems rough, this book is definitely based around social class.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting comments, I agree wholeheartedly. Even though the Victorian era was a period of great social change for many individuals and ended the old class structure of the landed aristocracy having military power, it also instituted a social class in which the aristocracy held a different kind of power,wealth, and how that could be just as bad as the former system. I think Charlotte Bronte definitely intended to criticize the class structure of the period.
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