Brontë’s disapproval of the Victorian hierarchy and the degraded gender relations are recurring themes throughout the novel that create boundaries for Jane to act as an equal member of the society. Starting from Jane’s childhood, Brontë foreshadows one of Jane’s most important social setbacks, which is being a female with no inheritance. John Reed is the perfect example of the dominating Victorian male:
You have no business to take our books; you …show more content…
Jane’s first major form of religion came personated as Mr. Brocklehurst. Mr. Brocklehurst encompasses most of the wrong religious principles that cause Jane to find her own religious values.
I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world; my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety—not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of—