The experience of gender plays a significant role in each human life. Gender can be extremely liberating, granting one a comfortable label through which to identify oneself. It can also be an unbearable burden given by society, laced with a set of predetermined characteristics and stereotypes. Although different societies throughout the ages have given and assigned such burdens to members of both genders, women have arguably been hit the hardest by societal expectations based on gender. One of the most restrictive of such societies was the Victorian one of the 19th century. In Victorian society, women were seen as little more than beautiful objects: they were supposed to be both submissive and subordinate to men, not to mention intellectually
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She was expected to submit to the will of others...and yet, she does not. While teaching at Lowood, she "remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse..." (Brontë 158-159). Jane had fallen out of love with teaching by this point in her life and was feeling restless and trapped by Lowood 's rules and systems. She was tired of seeing and doing the same things every day: she felt caged. The traditional Victorian woman, if she had felt this way, would have meekly accepted that this was her lot in life. Jane is Brontë 's critique of this wallflower approach to existence. Jane changes her world when she sees something wrong with it: case in point, her bid to secure her freedom by posting for a governessing job. She thinks to herself, "Those who want situations must advertise; you must advertise in the -shire Herald" (Brontë 162). This she does, delivering the advertisement herself to the post office. This sort of independence was very uncharacteristic of a Victorian woman. Choices were to be made by superiors, usually male ones, and independence was not a virtue in a woman. Becoming a governess was also a usurpation of traditional gender roles, "Women were expected to locate themselves within a setting of family and domesticity. One social role that challenged this ideal of womanhood was the governess...[she] posed a challenge to society’s idealized standards of womanhood by occupying a contradictory social status throughout her career. She was, in almost every sense of the word, a lady; yet because she had to surrender leisure for work, the governess’ social status could no longer be on equal terms with other leisurely women" (dc.cod.edu). Jane wanted to forge her own way in the world, gender
She was expected to submit to the will of others...and yet, she does not. While teaching at Lowood, she "remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse..." (Brontë 158-159). Jane had fallen out of love with teaching by this point in her life and was feeling restless and trapped by Lowood 's rules and systems. She was tired of seeing and doing the same things every day: she felt caged. The traditional Victorian woman, if she had felt this way, would have meekly accepted that this was her lot in life. Jane is Brontë 's critique of this wallflower approach to existence. Jane changes her world when she sees something wrong with it: case in point, her bid to secure her freedom by posting for a governessing job. She thinks to herself, "Those who want situations must advertise; you must advertise in the -shire Herald" (Brontë 162). This she does, delivering the advertisement herself to the post office. This sort of independence was very uncharacteristic of a Victorian woman. Choices were to be made by superiors, usually male ones, and independence was not a virtue in a woman. Becoming a governess was also a usurpation of traditional gender roles, "Women were expected to locate themselves within a setting of family and domesticity. One social role that challenged this ideal of womanhood was the governess...[she] posed a challenge to society’s idealized standards of womanhood by occupying a contradictory social status throughout her career. She was, in almost every sense of the word, a lady; yet because she had to surrender leisure for work, the governess’ social status could no longer be on equal terms with other leisurely women" (dc.cod.edu). Jane wanted to forge her own way in the world, gender