3.2.2 The equality between men and women
Jane struggles continually to achieve equality and to overcome oppression. In addition to class hierarchy, she must fight against those who believe women to be inferior to men. Three central male figures threaten her desire for equality and dignity: Mr. Brocklehurst, Edward Rochester, and St John Rivers, Each tries to keep Jane in a submissive position, where she is unable to express her own thoughts and feelings. In her quest for independence and self－knowledge, she must escape Brocklehurst, reject St, John and come to Rochester only after ensuring that they may marry as equals. The last condition is met once Jane proves herself able to function, through the time shespends at Moor House, in a community and in a family. She will not depend solely on Rochester for love and she can be financially independent. Furthermore, Rochester is bind at the novel’s end and dependent on Jane to be his wife. In Chapter 12, Jane articulates what was for her time a radically feminist philosophy: women are supposed to be very calm generally but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow－minded in their more privileged fellow－creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bays. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex .After experiencing a lot of experience, Jane develops from an angry, rebellious, 10－year－old orphan into a sensitive, artistic, maternal, and independent young woman. Jane rejects marriages to Rochester and St, John because she understands she will have to forfeit her independence in the unions, and marries Rochester only when she has attained the financial independence and self－respect to maintain a marriage of equality.
Conclusion
In charlotte’s three principle novels, she distinguishes herself as a critical realist who attacks the hypocrisy, greed, petty tyranny, and lack of culture of the upper classes and sympathizes with the sufferings of the workers and poor people in general. The chief distinctive feature of her novels is the creation of courageous, upright, intelligent woman characters who successfully resist oppression, humiliation, and other social evils and defend their right to independence and equality in society. Jane is a very common-looking girl who has no charming appearance. At the same time, she is an extraordinary female because real beauty lies not in appearance, but in inner beauty. In my opinion, the value of a woman does not lie in her looks, her dress, and any other things that have a powerful fascination to man’s eyes, but in her nature, her mind, her character and her sentiment. Jane is ve good, pure, and has her own opinion, who is not to be shaken or modified by poverty and is not to be subdued by force. The novel, Jane Eyre, has been so popular for over one hundred years, and will influence more readers in the future, which is attributed to the femalecharacter of the novel-Jane Eyre.