Senior English major
Let me just start by saying that I hate reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Every time I am forced to do so, I spend more time putting off reading it than actually completing the book. But I have been assigned to do so in four different classes — one each year of my college career. And after finishing it again this week, in my senior year, I honestly believe that every university student should have to endure it at least once.
See, Brontë does a phenomenal job of portraying the horrors of patriarchy. She depicts why the feminist movement exists in the world. Her main character, Jane, does her best to move about within the confines of this male-dominated world, to little avail.
That’s what’s so painful about it.
Jane can only assert her power over her male counterpart when he is severely incapacitated. The novel describes this — a woman having any sort of equality — as only possible when a man loses the benefits of having equal rights. In itself, this undermines the very core of feminism.
Yet it’s vital to show this dystopia to college students. The world has come so far from the idea that women can only have any power when we take it away from men. Jane Eyre effectively reflects the world that Brontë lived in — the world where she couldn’t even publish the book under her own name, but had to pretend to be a man. But if we, as young people, lose sight of what once was, we run the risk of digressing back into old, unacceptable patterns.
So yeah, I have a history of cringing when thinking about being assigned Jane Eyre again. But I would read it a thousand more times if it meant saving our generation from losing the progress women have made since Brontë’s time.
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