Jane Eyre Womanhood

Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre during a time when women didn’t enjoy the autonomy they have today. From the very beginning of the book, the eponymous main character Jane Eyre faces a struggle with her identity as a woman. John Reed exerts his authority over Jane in attempts to belittle her womanhood with physical abuse. Other men that Jane meets in her life treat her the very same, demanding authority over her womanhood. This treatment originates from the very beginning of Jane Eyre. The first chapter of Jane Eyre opens with the introduction of Gateshead Hall and its residents, one of them the tyrannical John Reed. Her cousins exclude her from the group huddling around their mother because they do not want her. Yet, she finds peace in her exclusion, reading her own books and being independent. John demands that Jane immediately shows herself so he may further exert his authority. It is at this point where there is light shed upon John’s disaffection for the women in his family, …show more content…
While living at Gateshead Hall, she comes to expect the tyranny of John and braces for his abuse at all times. But the last he attacks, she realizes that she has the opportunity to fight back. Although John is not abusive towards the other women in his family, he shows disaffection because they are family members unlike Jane. His exertion of his gender authority comes also in the form of demands to call him “Master”. He demands to know what she’s doing at all times, especially with anything belonging to the Reeds such as books. Until the climax of the chapter, Jane sees it as a matter of survival at Gateshead to be obedient to John even if she is still abused by him. Ultimately, she decides on a whim that she can employ her independence as a woman and fight him back, although not yet realizing her full potential. However, it is here that her journey to realizing her self-sufficiency as a woman