"Jane Eyre" Chapter 7: Society and Hidden Morals

Charlotte Brontë

Writers often highlight the values of a culture or society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Explain how the author uses various literary devices to provide social commentary OR how the character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values.

Born in England in 1816, Charlotte Brontë became a notorious author well-known for her book Jane Eyre. Written in 1847, Jane Eyre follows a young woman and her internal conflict between her own personal desires and those of the social condition of the time. Within Chapter 7 of Jane Eyre, Brontë utilizes irony and juxtaposition as a method of portraying the alienation and societal gap between the lower and upper classes to further show the morals and values of the society of the time period.

In Chapter 7, readers are immersed in the life of the protagonist Jane as an orphan child growing up in a religious charity school, known as the Lowood Institution, where she and the other girls living there are mistreated consistently. Outside, the weather is cold and harsh. The girls at Lowood constantly suffer as a result of being poorly-clothed and underfed.

As the chapter continues, Mr. Brocklehurst, the institution's overseer, appears one day at the Lowood to lecture Miss Temple, the headmistress, as a result of being notified of her bending the rules of the school. In cases of which the girls' porridge was burned, she provided them with extra lunch. She also allowed girls the chance to wear two clean pairs of tuckers in one week instead of their usual one, and she was also encouraging and kind to the girls. Mr. Brocklehurst, during his visit, re-emphasizes the strictness of the educational program to Miss Temple, in front of all of the girls, and essentially encourages her to be crueler to them.

The program he has set forth for the institution is based off of his own personal and religious views, and is ironic in the sense that what he preaches he himself does not follow. He informs Miss Temple that allowing the children extra meals or clothing is spoiling them and teaching them greed and luxury. Hypocrisy at its finest, Mr. Brocklehurst himself, a wealthy clergyman, most certainly never misses a meal or the chance to have clean clothing and probably hasn't for quite some time. Instead, as he tells Miss Temple, he encourages all of the girls and teaches them to accept the situation and their hunger in the name of the Lord and think of it like Christian martyrdom. He even so proudly quotes the words that "proceedeth the mouth of God" in paragraph 21, "'If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye.'" Through this, Mr. Brocklehurst's true intentions and character are made clear, which entail that he by no means actually cares for the well-being of the children at the Lowood that he is supposed to be teaching, or even attempts to provide them with more commodities. Rather, he characterizes the mistreatment he is definitely causing as an intentional act of God.

In addition, Mr. Brocklehurst also preaches how the girls should dress modestly and plainly, including the styling of their hair. He is thoroughly disgraced by the sight of a young girl with curly hair, as it defies the plain appearance (i.e. straight hair) he believes the girls should have. Mr. Brocklehurst explains the only way to solve a natural sin as this was to cut off all of the girl's hair.

Following this moment, Mr. Brocklehurst's wife and daughter appear at the institution and further show irony once again. The women enter wearing fancy attire: nice gowns with expensive silk and velvet and with fur hats made of beaver. Not to mention, their hair is curled. This evidently shows obvious irony and juxtaposition between the young girls at Lowood, dressed in torn and dirty attire with their hair stick-straight, and the Brocklehurst women with their fancy clothing and curled hair. The Brocklehurst family likes to preach everything it isn't.

Both Mr. Brocklehurst's words and the comfortable luxury of which he and his family happily enjoy highlight the giant gap between the Mr. Brocklehurst and the girls living at Lowood. He believes he is a good man of God, living to serve and respect Him, preaching what it means to be a good Christian. In reality, he is the exact opposite of what "Christian principles" represent. He's wealthy and of the upper class, enjoys the luxury of consistent meals and laundry, and he starves and degrades young girls at his institution. He by no means shows empathy or compassion for those living in harsher conditions than himself. His and his family's characterization is a means of Brontë communicating how the upper societal class throughout Victorian England was dismissive of the suffering and pain of those below them.

Brontë uses this ironic characterization within Jane Eyre as a way of commenting on and highlighting the hidden morals of the society of the time period. The Victorian era

gave birth to the crystallizing of the concept of "separate spheres." In the most obvious sense, the "separate sphere" ideology often referred to gender roles, however, it can also refer to class distinctions within society. In Jane Eyre, Brontë utilizes both translations in her work to further her social commentary on England throughout the 19th century.

The social concept of the separate gender sphere is touched upon in Jane Eyre through the intentional inclusion of a male superior and his female inferiors. At the Lowood Institution, Mr. Brocklehurst holds all the power, and wastes no time establishing it. He so clearly places both Miss Temple and the young girls in line and establishes himself as the sole authority of the school through his condescending, degrading, and decisive words toward the women. He disregards any action made by Miss Temple and Brontë alludes to the common societal belief and moral that women's true purpose in society is pleasing and submitting to both men and God.

Brontë also hits on the separate class sphere of the Victorian era with the inclusion of Mr. Brocklehurst and his wealthy family and the poor girls of the Lowood Institution as characters. She alludes to the large gap between the upper and lower classes of Victorian England mainly through the description of these characters' clothing: the expensive and elaborate attire of the Brocklehurst family, and the worn-down and plain attire of the orphaned girls.

In total, Charlotte Brontë was revolutionary and progressive in nature, striking back against and bringing to light the social conditions of her time, and highlighted her views through the creation of Jane Eyre. Her novels became a way where she could describe values and hidden morals of society in England, focusing on the lives of oppressed women, like orphan Jane. She utilizes many literary devices, like irony and juxtaposition, to portray the alienation of the upper and lower class in the realm of the lower class, which further reflects the views each held of the other throughout 19th century England. These hidden morals of society were seen in the little value both women and the lower class had throughout the time period.