Haniya's Post

*submitted 8:40 p.m. Friday

“SPEAK I must: I had been trodden on severely, and MUST turn: but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence –

"I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."

This a high point in the novel when Jane finds her voice. We see not just a young girl speaking out but the Victorian woman challenging the male establishment. 1847, the height of Victorian age: female passion and sexuality was crushed, suppressed and policed. What is ironic is that it was the reign of female monarch. It was a very powerful moment in the novel when keeping this aspect of history in mind. No Victorian woman spoke out or even joined males in equal conversation but here we see a very passionate speech by Jane in which she is lashing out all her anger and passion. “My soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty.” We see the enlargement of her soul and her spirit. She feels liberated by speaking out. But in Jane Eyre we see a little girl rebelling and speaking up and challenging. We see it as a great leap forward for Jane after the experience of the red room where her passion and body were locked up. We see her ready for the upcoming voyages. It is significant to note that she was put in the carriage by herself and that she was ready before time. This was something that we didn’t see in the earlier heroines: Who preferred silence to speech and were devoid of passion. Fanny was also always silent and obedient to her cousins and aunts, never speaking out even once. Khirad also remains silent hoping “khuda ki adalat” will bring her justice one day. These two heroines were conforming to the national image of a woman. But here Charlotte Bronte is challenging the nation’s domestic order and the idea of a national domestic woman/heroine with the passionate Jane.