Island In Silence: Jane Eyre 3 --Woman Question

Jan

Jane Eyre 3 --Woman Question

Victoria becomes queen of England 1837.She opposed women's right to vote and believed that women's submission was God's will.

Others believed women were intellectually inferior. M.H. Abrams is especially helpful on this point:"A woman who tried to cultivate her intellect beyond drawing-room accomplishments was violating the order of Nature and religious tradition. Woman was to be valued, instead, for other qualities considered to be esp. characteristic of her sex: tenderness of understanding, unworldliness and innocence,domestic affection, and in various degrees, submissiveness"

Middle class women and upper middle class women suffered from boredom because they had no outlet for their energies.

¼ of England's female population in 1849 had jobs, either low-paying jobs, such as in factories or as domestics, or as governesses.

Early critics of the novel had different opinions on Bronte's treatment of the woman question. Margaret Oliphant called the novel "a wild declaration of the Rights of Women in a new aspect"（在一个新的视角上对女权主义野性的宣言）, and Elizabeth Rigby attacked its "pervading tone of ungodly discontent"(渗透着不虔诚的不满).

Intellectual equality of men and women Pg.116

Bored Pg.112-123

Governess Pg. 179-180