social class

• Brontë uses the novel to express her critique of Victorian class differences. Jane is consistently a poor individual within a wealthy environment, particularly with the Reeds and at Thornfield.
• Jane's poverty creates numerous obstacles for her and her pursuit of happiness, including personal insecurity and the denial of opportunities
• How is social class presented in Jane Eyre?

  • Through Jane's lack of money and how others view her because of this.
  • Jane's role as a governess.
  • The money she receives from her uncle's will and how she then feels 'an equal' to Rochester.
• JANE + THE REEDS →

  • Jane's ambiguous class status becomes evident from the novel's opening chapter. A poor orphan living with relatives, Jane feels alienated from the rest of the Reed family. 
• John Reed tells Jane she has "no business to take our books; you are a dependent . . . you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentleman's children like us."
• • John claims the rights of the gentleman, implying that Jane's family was from a lower class, and, therefore, she has no right to associate on equal footing with her wealthy cousins. 
• • Jane's lack of money leaves her dependent upon the Reeds for sustenance. She appears to exist in a no-man's land between the upper- and servant classes. 
• By calling her cousin John a "murderer," "slave-driver," and "Roman emperor," Jane emphasises her recognition of the corruption inherent in the ruling classes
• • As she's dragged away to the red-room following her fight with John Reed, Jane resists her captors like a "rebel slave," emphasising the oppression she suffers because of her class status.
• When Miss Abbot admonishes Jane for striking John Reed, Jane's "young master," Jane immediately questions her terminology. Is John really her "master"; is she his servant? Emphasising the corruption, even despotism of the upper classes, Jane's narrative makes her audience aware that the middle classes were becoming the repositories of both moral and intellectual superiority
• Miss Abbot also advises Jane: “And you ought not to think of yourself on an equality with the Misses  Reed and Master Reed… they will have a great deal of money and you will have none”.
•  Despite growing up in an upper-class home, she is treated and is viewed as a member of the lower-class by the Reed family.
• • This teaches Jane an important lesson about where she belongs in these socially constructed classes, which motivates her to do better in life to be as “equal” as the Reeds.
• The relationship between Jane and Rochester also emphasises class issues. In a conversation preceding their betrothal, Rochester treats Jane like a good servant: Because she's been a "dependent" who has done "her duty," he, as her employer, wants to offer her assistance in finding a new job
• Jane confirms her secondary status by referring to Rochester as "master," and believing "wealth, caste, custom," separates her from him.
• She fears he will treat her like an "automaton" because she is "poor, obscure, plain and little," mistakenly believing the lower classes to be heartless and soulless.
• Rochester tells Jane that his marriage proposal was motivated by pity rather than love, suggesting that he sees himself as superior to her due to his wealth and position. This highlights how class differences can affect romantic relationships.
• • Claiming the aristocratic privilege of creating his own rules, Rochester redefines Jane's class status, by defining her as his "equal" and "likeness."
• After Rochester has announced his forthcoming marriage to Jane, Mrs Fairfax shuns Jane as she believes she has stepped above her station by marrying Rochester: "I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir."
•  Mrs Fairfax believes that social class and its rules should be followed. This was a common belief in Victorian society.
• • Rochester's response of "Station! Station! - your station is in my heart" illustrates Brontë's true feelings about social class and her attempts to challenge it.
• When Bessie sees Jane at Lowood, she is impressed because Jane has become "quite a lady"; in fact, her accomplishments surpass that of her cousins, yet they are still considered her social superiors based solely on wealth.
• • The conversation emphasises the ambiguities of Jane's family's class status and of the class system in general: Should a lady be judged based on academic accomplishments, money, or family name? 
• The novel critiques the behaviour of most of the upper-class characters Jane meets: Blanche Ingram is haughty and superficial, John Reed is debauched, and Eliza Reed is inhumanely cold.
• Rochester is a primary example of upper-class debauchery, with his series of mistresses and his attempt to make Jane a member of the harem.
•  In her final view of Thornfield, after Bertha has burned it down, Jane emphasises the stark contrast between her comforting, flowering, breathtaking dream of Thornfield, and the reality of its trodden and wasted grounds.
• One of Jane's tasks in the novel is to revitalise the upper classes, which have become mired in debauchery and haughtiness.
• Just as Rochester sought Jane for her freshness and purity, the novel suggests that the upper classes in general need the pure moral values and stringent work ethic of the middle classes.
• • At the novel's end, Rochester recognizes the error in his lifestyle, and his excessive passions have been quenched; he is reborn as a proper, mild-mannered husband, happily dependent on his wife's moral and intellectual guidance