In Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the protagonist does not fulfill the role of the typical or the perfect woman. Jane is headstrong, intelligent, practical, and well spoken. These traits are far from those of the perfect woman; however, she acquires them as a form of expression or defense by interacting closely with many women throughout the novel. Those influential women all make a positive or a negative impact on her, thus altering her feminine tendencies by allowing the expression or repression of certain character traits.
Mrs. Reed is Jane’s aunt and is the first adult woman Jane encounters during her childhood. Her aunt’s cruel treatment and attitude toward Jane caused her to take great strides to be different from her wicked aunt. The favoritism Mrs. Reed shows among her children, mainly favoring her own
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Rochester, is portrayed as a beast instead of a woman. She falls mentally ill after she marries Rochester and her crazed and cruel actions drive her husband to locking her in a hidden room under constant supervision. After 10 years in the attic, she has become a monster and is described as a terrifying sight: “Fearful and ghastly to me--oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face--it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments” (Bronte 306). When Bertha no longer thinks or behaves as a proper woman, Bronte gives her a horrid appearance and Rochester does not even consider her as a wife. Bertha serves as an extreme foil for Jane, and would be an extremely negative feminine influence if Jane took on any of her traits. Jane is described as small and relatively tame, whereas Bertha is large enough to successfully fight Mr. Rochester and often makes murderous attempts on both Jane and Rochester’s lives. Bertha is the opposite of what a woman is supposed to be in the novel, and her portrayal in the book is used to enforce what Jane should not be