Jane’s Choice: Social space and class

“No, I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply.

“Not if they were kind to you?”

I shook my head. I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn how to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead; no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.

“But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?”

“I cannot tell. Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set; I should not like to go a-begging.”(Jane Eyre, Chapter 3, Charlotte Bronte)

Although this passage is not that important in the overarching narrative but I felt when it came to questions about the female identity, class and social space it is interesting. The first thing to note is that we are largely in the realm of attained status not ascribed status. Also, Jane as an individual is endowed with the capacity for a rational engagement with the idea of belonging to a particular class and social space. Though she’s repeatedly told by Mrs. Reed and her children that she has “no money” because “your father left you none” and her relations are a “beggarly set”, Jane doesn't automatically assume a similar status and class for herself.  The question of social space and class is something to ponder over, for her.

 Interestingly enough she doesn't want to associate with the working class firstly due to the notion of sharing social space with them and after that comes the economic aspect associated with class. Her first argument to avoid the “poor people” is that she “doesn't want to adopt their manners” and share a social space with “uneducated” “poor women”.  No matter what her level of desperation for “an entire separation from Gateshead”, Jane would not “like to belong to the poor people”. Second to this argument about social space, is the argument based on the economic aspect, wherein Jane “should not like to go a-begging”.  Her agency as a female who ‘chooses’ a space and class is such that she is very realistic and prudent, extremely rational about the notion of ‘belonging’.

 For Jane ‘belonging’ as we see in the above passage does not have any emotive association or romantic attachment rather it is a question of “price” one is willing to pay to achieve a certain attained status. Jane blatantly says that she “would not purchase liberty at the price of caste”. Thus in the character of Jane Eyre we see a very modern idea of belonging; in the sense of sharing social space, intellectual affinity and, to a lesser degree, class. Jane then belongs to Lowood because of the social space shared with Helen Burns and her intellectual affinity with Miss Temple.  Because the 19^th century British society does not allow for a woman to make this choice of belonging, Jane (and her likes i.e. Maggie Tulliver, Tess D’Urberville) is largely an outcast from the national space which is primarily inhabited by dimwitted women (Amelia Sedley is welcomed into the national space as opposed to Becky Sharp).