Jane Eyre – Victorian Gender Roles

Jane Eyre – Victorian Gender Roles

A comprehensive and professionally structured resource exploring how Charlotte Brontë presents and challenges Victorian expectations surrounding gender in Jane Eyre.

This resource examines the pressures placed upon Jane as a dependent child, pupil, governess and prospective wife. It considers how gender interacts with class, money, education, religion and marriage while exploring the different ways women resist, endure or reproduce restrictive social expectations.

Key features:

• Clear introduction to separate spheres, female conduct, coverture, employment and the social position of the governess
• Focus on Jane’s resistance at Gateshead, discipline at Lowood, employment at Thornfield and developing financial independence
• Exploration of Rochester and St John as contrasting forms of male authority, emotional pressure and attempted control
• Examination of Bertha Mason, female confinement, first-person narration, Gothic symbolism and feminist, historicist, religious and postcolonial interpretations
• A varied selection of activities supported by a complete answer key