Jane Eyer as a Female Orphan

Jane Eyre

Representation of Orphan Girls and the Condition of Victorian Females

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte was published in 1847. It introduced a new voice to the world- passionate, rebellious and defiant. The male canonical novelists of the nineteenth century neglected the difficulty and challenges faced by the women and the orphan girls of the period. These challenges were no less than those confronted by men rather in many cases they were far more complex for females.

The nineteenth century was an age of ambivalence yet it was an age of rigorous moral codes and conducts. There were many books which were published during this period and it highlighted the codes of conduct that ought to be followed by the people especially by the middle class and upper middle class English citizens. Paradoxically, in this world of rigorous morality, the orphans were most often mistreated. Charles Dickens’ male protagonists like David in David Copperfield, Oliver in Oliver Twist or even in a romance novel like Great Expectations we find the evidences of the cruelty performed by the guardians towards their wards. David is mistreated by his step-father Mr. Murdstone and his step-aunt Miss Murdstone, Pip on the other hand is “brought up by hand” by her ferocious sister Mrs. Joe Gargery. In Oliver Twist we find the grotesque scene where a boy says that he will eat up anyone who sleeps beside him as he is too hungry. All these reveal the disfunctioning of the great-family. The novels by the Bronte sisters Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre constitute important feminist intervention in the by and large popular mainstream discourse of the boy child. In Wuthering Heights Catherine and Heathcliff present a wild passion for each other, which was considered to be improper to express especially on the part of the female. In Jane Eyre Jane’s transition from “the passivity and genderlessness of childhood into a turbulent puberty” is evident in the beginning of the novel in Gateshead where her adolescence is marked by her sudden and unprecedented revolt against the assault of John Reeds.

Jane’s rebellion against Mrs. Reed and John represents her feminist consciousness in getting esteem from other people as a decent and respectable person. The behaviour of Jane is catalogued as sinful by her aunt Reed and she is sent to the Red-room for her violent display of anger and passion. The red-room “was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in”, had a bed supported by “massive pillars of mahogany”, a secret drawer, wardrobes, jewel-chest and so on, which has strong associations with the adult female body. Moreover the colour red has metaphorical associations with psychological expressions like rage, passion and also with physiological phenomenon of menstruation. This also highlights the gendered nature of the experience of growing of an orphan. The red-room was a rite of passage where Jane’s transformation from girlhood to adulthood takes place. Therefore growth in the repressed Victorian society as a boy and as a girl saw its outpour through the characters. In the mainstream culture the term ‘orphans’ was equal to male orphans but with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights the gendered differentiation in the confronting experience of puberty gets registered.

From the very few first pages of the novel, we get the idea that Jane is not like her cousins and her aunts want her to acquire “a sociable and childlike disposition”. In her anger and passion Jane is far removed from the conventional model of the Victorian child who must be ‘seen and not heard’. In the Lowood institution Jane has an encounter with Helen Burns. Helen Burns is the pious, submissive child who resigns to her fate. Even when she is beaten for no practical fault of hers (her hair curls naturally), instead of uttering a single word she takes the cane. Moreover her name Burns signifies her self-sacrificing nature, she is the perfect victim. Brocklehurst the owner of Lowood Institution proclaims that his mission ‘is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh’. As an institution Lowood attempts to discipline its inmates/disciples not only by destroying their individuality but also by “punishing and starving their sexuality”.

Interestingly, the conduct books of the Victorian period circulated that the rebellious, disobedient, angry child will go to hell. When Brockleherst asks Jane what she must do in order to prevent going to hell, she replies “I must keep in good health and not die”- mixes childish naivety and seriousness. This statement from a girl of ten years also gives the reader a foresight of her pragmatic nature. Moreover Helen Burns, the pious girl dies of typhus fever whereas Jane escapes from the scythe of the flu/epidemic. So naturally a question arises if Charlotte was trying to put forward an alternative discourse of the conduct books and manuals. Therefore Lowood institution as depicted by Bronte was harsh and far removed from the dreadful Yorkshire school, Dotheboys Hall, in Nicholas Nickleby. The main idea behind these harsh measures were if the body was punished the soul could be saved. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte challenges these notions and instead offers a deeply sympathetic portrayal of a rebellious child which helped to transform Victorian attitudes to the child.

Jane for her being an orphaned child and poor circumstances is forced to live as a dependant under the roof of Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed and her children treat her with everything except equality, kindness and affection. In spite of these Jane grows up to be an independent girl. The hardships of Jane reflect that not only Victorian males but also females had to fight and struggled to earn their living.

The conditions for middle class women were