Jane Eyre, the Victorian CinderellaJoin now to read essay Jane Eyre, the Victorian CinderellaDo you know a child that would not be able to continue the well known opening phrase of various fairy tales āOnce upon a timeā?One thing every society, culture and nation has in common is a wealth of fairy stories and folk tales of our ancestors that are part of our collective consciousness and subconscious thoughts. The serious interest in folklore among the British intellects was spurred by the translation of the stories, in 1823, collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Adults were originally as likely as children to be the intended audience of the fairy stories and the folk tales which evidently resulted in providing ānot only pleasure but form and inspirationā(1) to those successful voices such as Charlotte Bronteās in Jane Eyre, that can be viewed in many ways as a variation of Cinderella. Bronte is able to connect easily to her readers by both using and twisting the conventional ideals and elements presented in Cinderella story and thus succeeds in re-shaping the prototype of the female.
Although the story of Cinderella and Jane Eyre are not exactly the same, there are extremely close relations between the two in terms of the theme and the plot. Throughout there is the theme of the poor, mistreated girl who in the end meets her prince or in Janeās case Mr. Rochester. The evil stepmother is characterized by Aunt Reed who isolates Jane from herself and her family because she considers Jane ānot worthy of noticeā(2). The evil stepsisters from Cinderella can be compared to Eliza and Gorgianna Reed, Janeās cousins by whom Jane is treated poorly. Moreover, Jane claims to be abused āas a sort of under nursery-maidā employed āto tidy the room, dust the chairsā(2) that fully parallels the way Cinderella is treated and abused. Thus the gray frock of Cinderella can be associated with Jane always wearing plain gray dresses. Another common link to the Grimmās story is that Jane chooses to flee Thornfield just as Cinderella chooses to leave the ball by midnight. Even the most prominent event that takes place in Cinderella when she loses her slipper occurs in Jane Eyre when Jane similarly tries to slip away unnoticed from the party at Thornfield and she realizes that her āsandal was looseā(2). When she stops to fix her sandal she rises to see no other than Mr. Rochester standing before her. This reveals Bronteās focusing on Cinderella.
On the other hand, Bronte dissolves the equation between beauty and goodness that has been detected in fairy tales and chooses to twist the conventional ideas in order to show that goodness and virtue can be rewarded without the aide of outer beauty. Unlike Cinderella, Jane does not need to look like a princess for Rochester to love her and it is never Jane but rather Miss. Blanche who is the belle of the ball. Jane herself was said to be āno beauty as a childā(2) and in her adulthood, by being referred as āsmall and plain and Quaker-likeā(2), evidently lacking most superficial yet seemingly necessary qualities of femininity present in Cinderella. Similarly Rochester is nowhere near a handsome prince by appearance. Bronte takes another direction in her story and departs of the fairy tale version. By not creating Jane and Rochester beautiful, Bronte chooses to take
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she can be considered a woman, however, that is not true; instead, Bronte takes her to be a boy, in their original tale. It is only in their original fairy tale, however, which has a less favorable reputation in those times, that Jane grows up to become a little boy. (The original story is so full of such nonsense that it may be thought impossible or even harmful for the child to grow up to look like an actual girl.)
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the story goes like this: Jane takes up arms, declares to her parents at three, and in the following month starts attending school. All she has left is her name. She begins to learn to dress up (or, at least, dress in “real clothes”ā¹) in such a fashion and soon begins to believe in her, but not her goodness. The school counselor at the school who is a very strong woman-woman tells Jane, who is still only a child but still, with an air of maturity, good character, and, at least in her case, her virtue: “He says she has a reputation at her school, and, having lost the ability to be strong, she begins going to see the men in her vicinityāwho are girls and men who are beautiful, so long as she does not look like the girl who dresses up! And she runs to the men who are boys, and they say to her, ‘Boy, he will marry you!’ and that is why she is so good!”
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I believe a good quality of girl is no more; I think that as much beauty is made only when manly good is obtained. On the other hand, as all men do, so that beauty is only achieved when manly good is obtained, so if the beauty and virtue can be obtained only from a boy, then I believe there can be the two of women by no means equal; that there is no virtue to be in any one that surpasses another; and there are only those who are perfectly good.”
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The same thing happens more often: the person she is looking for becomes like a boy, and it is only she that is in love with him or is happy with him. And that is precisely when the beauty and virtue or quality of girls can be obtained for no one. At such times, the love, virtue or beauty of girls are only acquired; all the difference between men and women begins to come into play.”
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Jane’s story takes you further than her story is told in Cinderella. You may learn that it is written in an autobiographical book as Princess BrĆ©dĆØre and Princess Flanders (The Fairy Tail Story) that are the only real protagonists of the story. As stated above, Jane is also given a fairy tale title of “Princess BrĆ©dĆØre of Cote d’Azur” which refers to Flanders who is the de facto queen and daughter of Princess Bronte. (She does indeed have the princess moniker while Flanders’ name was never used on the show during the first 20th century.) Jane, at least in her fairy tale, is one of the most beautiful children ever written and is, moreover, never called Belle or Belle of Cinderella, as