The Sexism Exposed in Brontë's Jane Eyre The Victorian era in England marked a period of unprecedented technological, scientific, political and economic progress. By the 1840s, the English witnessed notable industrial achievements, including the advent of the railways and the photographic negative. They had witnessed the expansion of the Empire and, as a result, lived in a period of great economic stability. Yet they had also seen thousands of people starve – and die – due to the Irish potato famine and poor conditions and benefits in British factories and had witnessed the entire order of society being called into question as the working classes began to demand representation in Parliament. The English also experienced biological and scientific discoveries that challenged once universally accepted beliefs in the authority of the Bible, the divine order of nature, and the gross exploitation of women and people of other races. It was a period of great achievements, yes, but it was also a period of great contradictions and uncertainties. The Victorian era was also the era of the novel, as many English citizens now possessed the time and money to afford such luxury. The novels of the early Victorian era reflect the growing malaise of the age; writers of the 1840s in particular responded indirectly to the social upheaval, writing personal, subjective novels. Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, published in 1847, is an archetypal novel of the 1840s. It tells the story of Jane Eyre, an orphan who eventually finds herself and happiness as a governess and, later, a wife. Although this is a "personal" story that offers escape and entertainment to its readers, Jane Eyre surely, if some... middle of the paper... constantly low, to force her to burn within and never let out a scream, even if the flame imprisoned consumes vital after vital" (429). Furthermore, she marries Mr. Rochester only after he has become dependent and needs his care, claiming that she likes him better this way (469). Victorian women were meant to be passive, lazy partners , uneducated and subordinate in marriage. Readers are forced to realize that Jane does not conform to any of these expectations. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is representative of British novels of the 1840s a young governess, Brontë uses the story. also to address an important social issue of the Victorian era, sexism, directly and indirectly exposing the flaws and hypocrisies of Victorian patriarchal society Works Cited Brontë, Charlotte Jane Eyre 1847. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.