function of setting in Jane Eyre, arguing how Bronte used the setting to reflect how women can go beyond the limitations of their gender, and social class and find fulfilment. To deliberate these points in detail, the settings at Gateshead, and Thornfield will be closely assessed. In addition, it will consider how the Gothic imagination of the protagonist emphasised the feminist issues of the era, to reflect that it was not necessary for a woman to feel trapped within a patriarchal domestic society, and
Suppression and oppression are widely shown and represented throughout the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. In the beginning of Jane Eyre, the reader is exposed to the suppression of Jane by the Reed family. Jane is left out of many activities around the house and isn’t able to express any of her feelings or thoughts. Even though Mr. and Mrs. Reed are her aunt and uncle, and their children are her cousins, she cannot share her opinion on different things without being brutally reprimanded.
On the surface level, Brontë’s portrayal of Jane as a successful and independent woman that can equal her male counterpart, Rochester, is a noble cause that warrants applause from fem-inist critics. However, Rhys ultimately demonstrates through WSS that Bronte has not been able to read as a woman, in Culler’s terms. WSS exposes how the empowerment of Brontë’s female protagonist, Jane, in Jane Eyre depends upon the marginalisation and fall of another woman, Bertha Mason