Jane Eyre
...no other literary genre allows them to. Within the novel, the author can expand and detail their thoughts, values and beliefs through their characters. In other genres, such as poetry or short stories, authors are not allowed the time or space to develop ideas. Novels also allow the author to comment on or respond to new ideas in society. Charlotte Bronte did this with her novel Jane Eyre commenting on ideas including love, social class and gender. Jane Eyre allowed Bronte to develop her ideas and opinions about her society at the time thoroughly. Another author who uses the art form of the novel is Bram Stoker, with his novel Dracula. Stoker makes known his anxieties and the anxieties that characterised his age: the repercussions of scientific advancement and the dangers of female sexuality.
Jane Eyre discusses the idea of love verses autonomy. ‘It is very much the story of a quest to be loved. Jane struggles continually to achieve equality and to overcome oppression and fight against patriarchal domination—against those who believe women to be inferior to men and try to treat them as such. Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging. Her fear of losing her autonomy motivates her refusal of Rochester's marriage proposal. Jane believes that "marrying" Rochester while he remains legally tied to Bertha, Rochester's first wife would mean rendering herself a mistress and sacrificing her own integrity for the sake of emotional gratification. Only after proving her self-sufficiency to herself can she marry Rochester and not be asymmetrically dependent upon him as her "master." The marriage can be one between equals (1)'. As Jane says: "I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. . . . To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. . . . We are precisely suited...
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