The Literature Book

128

I AM NO BIRD;

AND NO NET

ENSNARES ME

JANE EYRE (1847), CHARLOTTE BRONTË

W

hen Jane Eyre was

first published in 1847,

it was credited to

Currer Bell, a pseudonym used by

Charlotte Brontë to conceal her

gender (the work of women writers

was often considered by critics

to be second-rate). The book was

also subtitled An Autobiography,

signaling that it had borrowed

from the 19th-century German

Bildungsroman genre (the “novel of

formation”). In these coming-of-age

stories, readers typically followed

protagonists through their lives

from childhood to adulthood as

they overcame obstacles to reach

maturity. Significantly, the

development of selfhood and

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Victorian feminism

AFTER

1847 Emily Brontë publishes

Wuthering Heights, exploring

feminist issues of gender,

domesticity, and women’s

status in Victorian society.

1853 Charlotte Brontë’s

Villette is published. It is

considered a more mature

reworking of her earlier themes

of women’s self-determination,

identity, and independence.

1860 George Eliot’s The Mill

on the Floss contrasts themes

of female intellectual growth

with notions of family duty.

1892 Charlotte Perkins Gilman

publishes her short story “The

Yellow Wallpaper,” an early

example of American feminist

literature that shows women’s

mental health in relation to

patriarchal oppression.

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