Jane Eyre

In the book Jane Eyre there are lots of situations in which gender roles are challenged. Back when the book was written, Men were the superiority and women did as they were told. One of the most significant scenes that challenged gender roles in Jane Eyre is in the beginning when Jane stood up for herself against her cousin John. John was always abusing Jane, and it was a normal thing back then, and Jane, being a woman, was to not of done anything about it. One day though when John was taunting her again, Jane fought back for once, and of course John ran to his aunt to tell on her. Jane was then sentenced to the "red room" and while she was getting carried into the room, she resisted the whole way. Once Jane was in the red room she realized she was in the room in which her uncle died. She then imagined she saw the ghost of her uncle, causing her to make a temper tantrum. Jane having the temper tantrum i believe would of challenged gender roles back then, but not today. In our current generation, most people believe that women have "temper tantrums" all the time, yet back then, I believe that women were just to do as they were told with no resistance.

Before Jane left to go to Lowood school, she told her aunt what she really thought of her, she told her how wicked and evil it was of her to lock her in the red room and of how she knew that John was abusing her yet she never did anything about it. Already in the first few chapters, Jane was challenging her gender role. It gave the reader a sense of what kind of person Jane was, which I believe carries on throughout the novel. It was known back then that it was okay for men to hit women, women usually knew their place and knew that they could not do anything about it. Jane pushing John Reed was a very brave and courageous thing to do, especially for a 10 year old girl. When Jane told her aunt what she truly thought about her, it was also very brave as well. Even now in the generation that we currently are living in, it is still very hard for some people to stand up for themselves and tell someone how they feel, or to tell them about how wrong they have treated them (more relevant to kids and parents).

So knowing how difficult it would be to be place into situations in which Jane experienced and actually doing something about it, Jane most definitely challenged her gender roles against males and authority. This book is a good insight into how women were treated back then and hopefully made an impact for women to know their rights and to stand up for themselves and what they believe in for situations that happened in the book, i'm sure is still happening today.