Stanford
Patrick Stanford
Cassandra Golden
British Lit 201
March 13, 2013
Jane Eyre: The Surrogate of Charlotte Bronte
In life people sometimes wish they could be someone else. They wish to be able to be
“this” and live like “that”. It’s natural—humans all have an insatiability to want more for
themselves. The same could be said for the Victorian writer, Charlotte Bronte, in her novel Jane
Eyre. Charlotte used her character, Jane Eyre, to write about how she would have liked to live as
a governess. Through her novel Charlotte used Jane to break the mold of a typical governess and
even contested the view of women during her time to the way she wished it had been.
During the Victorian area, women had two distinct purposes in life: marriage and
motherhood (Teachman 79). So, for the single woman, she was considered unnecessary if she
could not marry, and if her father or brother could not take care of her, she was left to teach as a
governess. The role of a governess was frowned upon by most of society. Pat Macpherson wrote
in his book, Reflecting on Jane Eyre, that, “The governess was an embarrassing exception to the
success of the family as the economic brick of the society- and she was treated as the social
embarrassment.” MacPherson also explained that a governess was in charge of “educating the
young in moral and social behaviour of their class” (MacPherson 2). Jeanne Peterson said it best
when she said, “as a governess she had sold herself as an ornament to display her employer’s
prestige.” This gives a good insight into just how humbling being a governess was. For the
typical governess, “Pay was notoriously low” (Vicinus 7). According to Martha Vicinus in her
book, Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, governesses were paid nearly the same
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amount as a lady’s maid. The disadvantage this put on women being able to truly support
themselves was astronomical. This put women barely able to live anywhere near a genteel life
(Vicinus 8.) Not having any money made them a dependent to the family, sometimes even a
slave to them. Without the family she would be out on the streets. A gritty definition of the job of
a governess is, “A governesses’ job was not a solution so much as an alleviation of a women’s
dependency” (MacPherson 2). The job of a governess was much more necessity than luxury.
Knowing the basic mold, it is important to see how Jane Eyre does indeed meet the
requirements of a true governess. First, all we see that she too is paid very low. Jane is told in her
letter from Mrs. Fairfax, that her salary would be “thirty pounds per annum” (Bronte 84). Like
most governesses, this was equal to about the amount a nursemaid would make (Vivinus 8).
Another typical characteristic of a governess was that they did not have a definite rank in the
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