Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
Especially as she was an orphan and the person who should have loved and protected her in their place (her aunt) did quite the opposite. So she needed an older, protective person in her life.
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That's a good point and one that's been glossed over in this discussion. Jane is a scrappy who has to make her own chances. In this way her story is different from other popular romances of the time. While it's true that Austen's heroines are circling the economic drain, they are still living in privilege. Their worry is for their future after the deaths of their parents. Jane is orphaned as a child and must build from literally nothing, without the benefit of any such safe nurturing childhood environment. I will never forget how gutted *I* felt when Jane left her bundle, all of her worldly goods, on that coach. She'd had precious little but now she had absolutely nothing. Jane Eyre isn't just a romance, like Hardy the Bronte sisters were writing about the effects that social and economic inequality had on the lives of women and children.