Jane’s refusal towards gender inequalities in The Victorian Era revealed in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: A Liberal Feminist literary criticism

ABSTRACT

Gender inequality is a general idea or theory which postulates that women has been treated as inferior to men in almost all sections of society. In the Victorian era, based on Jane Eyre, women were perceived as an object or property, and consi- dered inferior to man. However, Jane was not accustomed to unreservedly accepting all that embedded inequalities by both in exposing her acts and her opinion through the dialogues revealed on the novel. Certainly, through Jane, Brontë rebuts gender inequalities in the Victorian era, articulating her own feminist philosophy. For that reason, the writer is deeply interested in analyzing this novel based on feminist lite- rary criticism.

The problems of the study, they are (1) What are the gender inequalities in the Victorian era revealed in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre? (2) What are the effects of gender inequalities in the Victorian era on women revealed in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre? (3) How does Jane refuse the gender inequalities in the Victorian era re- vealed in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre?

The research design used by the writer is a literary criticism. The writer uses a liberal feminist literary criticism as an approach instead of others. The theory of lib- eral feminist applied is the one stated by Mary Wollstonecraft revealed through her book entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This approach is used due to re- vealing anything about woman, especially in the main character of Jane Eyre relating to the rejection towards gender inequalities in the Victorian era, implying that women have the autonomy right to determine themselves.

The results of this study show that there are three significances stated as the answers of the problems. Firstly, the writer could find that Brontë provides the reader with gender inequalities in the Victorian age exposed on Jane Eyre which covers four points that are subordination on women, negative stereotyping on women, violence on women and having more work burden for women. Secondly, the effects of gender inequalities in the Victorian era on women are the effects in society, economy, educa- tion and politic. The last is Jane’s refusal towards gender inequalities; they are Jane’s refusal against the subordination on women, Jane’s refusal against negative stereotyp- ing on women, and Jane’s refusal against violence on women.

Finally, the writer expects that this thesis will be useful for others and this study should be continued by other writers from other point of views and aspects, with more complete analysis, especially in liberal feminist.