How Entitled Boys Grow Up to be Entitled Men & How Jane Eyre Learns to Overcome Both

So sorry for missing an update last week. Spring break and SXSW took up all of my free time (as well as all of my writing time). The good news is I should be able to start sharing some of my thoughts and reviews on the festival soon. For now, I hope you will enjoy a literary analysis of my long-time favorite, gothic novel "Jane Eyre."

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In Charlotte Bronte’s "Jane Eyre", the men in Jane’s life greatly influence the woman she becomes. Some men, like her late uncle, give Jane a positive influence, while others showcase the negative and dangerous temperaments she wishes to avoid in herself and in others. At Gateshead, Lowood, and the Moor, Jane is at the mercy of entitled and obsessed men who attempt to control and repress her. Jane is confronted with their desires and expectations of her. What common expectation does Bronte give the men in Jane’s life? These men expect Jane to answer for their own desire and when they do not like her response, they attempt to supersede her autonomy.

As with the novel itself, we begin at Gateshead. At the center of Jane’s torment here is not Mrs. Reed, but the one character she disliked even worse-- John Reed. John sees himself as the man of the house and in that position he sees himself as the owner of all its possessions, including Jane. As a dependent of the family, Jane is expected to be grateful for all that she has as she is “less than a servant” (69). Even through Jane’s childlike eyes, John seems to be physically swollen with his own ego and toxic entitlement:

“John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities.” (66).

This description comes during the opening scene of the novel and it is during this scene that John’s relationship with Jane is fully encapsulated. John sees Jane as lesser than himself and his family, barely even human. He calls her impudent and a rat and degrades her by having her call him Master Reed while he abuses her.

Behavior like John’s is not punished in the book, nor is it often punished today. The sort of pigtail-pulling John inflicts on Jane is a socially accepted violence often attributed to young boys expressing desire. John’s abuse goes beyond the typical pigtail-pulling but that basis is still strongly present. With that lens in mind, it becomes increasingly clear how John’s objectification and control over Jane stem from schoolyard misogyny and a fourteen-year-old’s first understanding of attraction. When Jane does not act in complete subservience to John’s whims he lashes out violently.

Whatever John imagines his justifications to be, Bronte makes it clear how Jane views him. “I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer.” (68). The fear John inspires is a familiar one to young girls of any time period even today and it is Jane’s adult vocabulary and mature articulation that gives this timeless fear a voice, “every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.” (66). Thankfully this fear becomes a guiding force in Jane’s life. Allowing the opportunity to escape from oppression through school.

Freedom for Jane comes with a cost. Before she even escapes John and the Reed’s home, Jane is confronted with the next obsessive man in her young life-- Mr. Brocklehurst. At the Lowood school, Mr. Brocklehurst is a clergyman acting as the benefactor. He uses this position of power to subjugate others to his will and especially singles out Jane to inflict that will upon. This singular focus stems from Jane’s first interaction with Mr. Brocklehurst where her description goes:

“I looked up at—a black pillar!—such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.” (90).

Jane’s initial perception of others is very telling of the characteristics they will present. Mr. Brocklehurst quickly proves himself to be a rigid, grim, and masked man just as Jane describes. Past his oppressive personality and generally negative disposition, what makes Mr. Brocklehurst uniquely evil to Jane is his hypocrisy. Despite not having that trait proven until much later, Jane accurately peers behind the facade of a clergyman into his very nature.

Fear of nature is one of the greatest motivators in Mr. Brocklehurst’s life. His fixation on Jane is justified by her extraordinary connection to the natural world. In one line, Brocklehurst fully explains his opposition to nature: “‘we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of Grace’” (126). Leaning even farther into his hypocrisy, Mr. Brocklehurst has fully separated God from creation itself and in order to achieve God’s grace Jane must be stripped of her nature. Mr. Brocklehurst seems to genuinely believe that his humiliation and oppression will grant Jane access to a more godly version of herself but only someone as detached as Helen Burns would be able to see that justification. Bronte shows us Mr. Brocklehurst's actions through Jane’s perspective and through her he comes across as a truly sadistic man hell-bent on hurting Jane in the ways she finds most inexcusable.

Spite is an emotional quite familiar to Jane and is most applicable to her response to Mr. Brocklehurt’s treatment. Jane does truly grow from her time at Lowood, she becomes more sensible, grounded, and has more conscious agency over her reactions to life. Mr. Rochester notes Lowood’s effects on Jane- “controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs” (211). These all seem to be learned reactions from Jane’s time under Mr. Brocklehurst which was by no means pleasant but still granted her the control she needed in order to move forward in life.

It would seem John Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst acted as a sort of warm-up for the last man Jane must overcome. St. John is the most different of the three men and the stakes for him controlling Jane are much higher. Rather than losing her dignity or her social standing, succumbing to the power of St. John could very easily lead to Jane losing her very life.

Despite Jane’s perceptive nature and well-learned instincts, nothing seems amiss with St. John. Unfortunately for Jane, awful boys grow up to be awful men. They have also learned to hide better amongst the common folk of life. St. John’s unassuming nature is what makes him so dangerous to Jane. His justifications appear valid and shrowd his entitled behavior from view. Plainly put, St. John presumes to know Jane better than she knows herself. That when she is quiet it is to make room for him to speak. It is this entitlement that makes him so alike to John Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst. When attempting to persuade Jane to marry him, St. John claims:

“that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God.” (508).

St. John has deluded himself so fully that he believes his will is justified by likening it to the all-powerful God’s. This moment of rejection is where St. John fully showcases his toxic colors and begins the sequence of events that drives Jane away from him. In driving Jane away she becomes more acutely aware of her desires and how to achieve them without comprising her own values. With that resolution, Jane flees the oppression of St. John and returns to Mr. Rochester.

Each man in Jane’s life believes he is justified and that the system of the world validates the way he treats her. So when Jane defies these men she is not only defying the individual but the very structure of society that supports these men. In a way, showing all the negative ways men in Jane’s life feel entitled to her only builds a sharper contrast to her relationship with Rochester. Like John, Brocklehurst, and St. John, Mr. Rochester is possessive over Jane but he never allows that possession never to tip over into objectification. Mr. Rochester does not love an image of Jane, he loves her for her mutable, holistic self. A relationship like theirs is the precipice of sublimity and toxicity. Mr. Rochester and Jane rely heavily on one another to balance their volatile personalities. A modern example of this relationship in media can be seen in the 2018 movie Phantom Thread. In this film, the leading couple Alma Elson and Reynolds Woodcock submit to an equally toxic relationship. They show a complete immersion in the Id of the psyche. Jane and Rochester would have very easily fallen into this similar dynamic of being madly in love with the worst of one another. However, by way of Jane’s experience with the worst of men, she steps back from Mr. Rochester and only returns to him when they can enter their relationship on equal ground. Jane’s spirit is steadfast in the face of repression, but she was not born unwavering. It is through her trials with these men that her values are solidified and her resolve develops. Jane and Rochester build a love that is holistic and balanced, something Jane hasn’t found with any other man in her life.