Blurred Lines In Charlotte Bronte's, “Jane Eyre”, we see a reversal of gender roles between both Mr. Rochester and Jane. In multiple scenes of the book the two switch back and forth from their natural roles, which ends up benefiting the two. In the story, Mr. Rochester, the big burly owner of thornfield, occasionally drops his natural patriarchal role to become a feminine like character. Jane also does this as she takes on a more masculine role from time to time, and drops her feminine complacency. While usually both characters dropping their gender-specific roles could possibly turn out bad, in this story dropping the stereotypical gender roles leads to happiness in the end. Both characters by venturing out of their gender roles find ways …show more content…
Rochester, disguised as the gypsy is described as an “old crone” (250). Even though Rochester uses this feminine disguise, he still maintains his masculinity in different ways, like when he “drew out a short black pipe” and began to smoke it (250). Rochester in a full womens outfit still just blurs lines. He primarily has this suit on because he is trying to pull a certain answer out of Jane. The gypsy, or Rochester, keeps trying to get Jane to say that she has feelings for Rochester. Usually in a perfect world it is the little girl that goes out of her way to figure out if the boy on the playground likes her or not, but in this instance, Rochester becomes the feminine figure trying and get Jane to say that she likes him. In this instance Jane is in the masculine drivers seat. She can answer the gypsy’s questions anyway she wants, and continues to lead the gypsy in circles by avoiding her questions one by one. Jane criticizes the gypsy by saying, “your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes” (254). Jane tells the witch that she will not answer her questions, and in the end spins the topic of the whole conversation to avoid answering, which is a very masculine thing to do. Rochester also uses to the disguise to figure out the womens morales, a masculine thing to do. Before initiating this conversation with the gypsy she sees Blanche come out the library. Blanche has this look of somewhat disgust mixed with “wondrous grave” on her face after the gypsy had told her something negative about Rochesters future and his money (254). Slyly Rochester is able to weed out the suitors that are only with him due to his monetary value, except Jane. Jane’s plan she tells the gypsy is that she is to “save money enough out of her earnings” to set up her dream of her own school (252). Jane reveals to Rochester that she is a