Examples Of Social Class In Jane Eyre

Kelly Rice

DePalatis

Jane Eyre Essay

14 November 2015

Class

A typical social hierarchy includes a ruler of some sort, followed by noblemen, high priests, than government officials, working class, poor working class, peasants, slaves, and laborers. Each class holds a prejudice of another. In a social hierarchy, people tend to only speak or engage with their own class. In the Victorian novel, “Jane Eyre”, by Charlotte Brontë, the main character Jane experiences the harsh hierarchy of the 19th century. In her childhood spent with her aunt, she is a social class below her that cause several problems for Jane. Around the middle of Jane 's life when she goes to Rochester 's house, Jane begins to make a life for herself. Although her class should

Jane’s family died when she was little and so her uncle took her into his family. She was just an orphan. Mr. Reed asked of his wife to treat Jane as part of the family on his deathbed. Once he passed away, Mrs. Reed and her children used Jane 's social standing as an excuse to treat her poorly. Jane 's cousins tell her things like how “[she has] no money; [her] father left [her] none; [she] ought to beg and not to live here with gentlemen 's children like [them], and eat the same meals [they] do"(15). Since Jane is of a lower class, the Reeds believe that she is not worthy of living with them and that she should go beg on the streets. Jane, being only exposed to the Reeds perception of social class, also shows a negative attitude toward poverty at this point in her life. Jane understands that “poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children … poverty for [Jane] was synonymous with degradation (31).” Although Jane is on the bottom half of the social pyramid, she was raised as a child of higher status. With her siblings mentioning that she go live with her true class is scary for her. She is unwilling to give up her difficult yet extravagant lifestyle for that of a pauper. Although she would be treated kindly as a poor person, Jane has grown to believe that that is the worst possible scenario. She treated the Reeds as kind as

Furthermore, Jane Eyre reaches Thornfield where she is a governess for a man named Mr. Rochester. When she arrives at the mansion, Jane is told of the class of each person in the house. Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane that “in winter time, one feels dreary quite alone, in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority." It is clear that the Victorian attitude toward class is abominable. In Jane 's time, it was not socially correct to talk to someone who is not one 's “equal”. Who decided that one human could be unequal or greater than another human? Jane understands this concept and does not follow it as most tend to do. When she speaks to her boss of a higher class, she treats him almost as an equal. Jane says that Mr. Rochester has no “right to command [her], merely because [he is] older than [her], or because [he has] seen more of the world than [she has]—[his] claim to superiority depends on the use [he has] made of [his] time and experience." Mr. Rochester has never been spoken to in such a way. Because of Jane 's front of superiority, he begins to fall in love with Jane. Jane has learned from her past job at Lowood that her social standing does not matter. She and learned this from her time and experience which gives her superiority exactly