Mr. Mom

As I read Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, there were many apparent gender themes spread throughout the book in which various normal gender roles within the society of the mid 19^th century were strongly challenged. This aspect of the book played a key importance to the development of each character; specifying whom the true antagonists and protagonists of the novel were.

Within one specific chapter of the book, chapter 15, the reader sees a very distinct challenge of a typical gender role of a male father and female mother. In the 19^th century, male figures were generally not regarded as the nurturer or caretaker of the children, this was a role specifically associated with the female figure.

As Jane is growing more and more accustomed to her life at Thornfield, she is continually learning and seeing the multifaceted character of Mr. Rochester. Chapter 15 contains a crucial scene in which Mr. Rochester manifests the disheartening story of his past lover, Celine Varens. Explaining his feelings of jealousy as Celine exits a car with another man close behind her, Mr. Rochester says the following to Jane:

You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not; I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience; your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come someday to a craggy pass of the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise; either you will be dashed to atoms and crag-points, or lifted up and borne on by some master wave into a calmer current—as I am now.

In the 19^th century, male vulnerability and emotion shown such as this was not expected. We see a man confessing such feelings discovered from the soul wrenching experience of that of love; which was much expected then, and even in today’s society, from the women in the relationship. On the contrary, this scenario was a flipped gender role in which Celine left Mr. Rochester with raw emotions and feelings such as this, as well as her own child to take care of. He then steps into the role of the caretaker of this child, perplexing the ideas of the right roles for the proper genders. This happens in many instances throughout Jane Eyre. Bronte does a beautiful job at presenting these characters in way that disrupts the common views about gender during that era.

This is a novel that society should learn and grow from within the boxes that they have framed around what the “duties” or “normal” ways for men and women to go about life. I still think that there are natural borders to gender; however, women and men are absolutely able to accomplish the same amount of tasks and goals at the same standards.

Reference:

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York, NY. 2001. Page 170.