The Contradictions of the Victorian Child: Jane Eyre I-IV

WARNING: If you haven’t read Chapters 1-4 of Jane Eyre, this article will spoil plot points. I recommend you read the first four chapters and then come back here. All page numbers are from the edition of Jane Eyre sold in my Jane Eyre book box.

If you’ve heard of Jane Eyre, but haven’t read it until now, you might be surprised to see that the story starts when Jane is a 10-year-old girl. We are accustomed to hearing about grown-up Jane and her romantic escapades. Child Jane, however, is an afterthought. But if we wish to understand grown-up Jane, we need to look at Jane's childhood. If we’re to do that properly, we need to consider some of the contradictory attitudes Victorians took towards children, attitudes that still exist in some minds today.

Women working in a factory, preparing wool to be made into fabric or thread. A young girl works in the foreground. At this time, child labor was the norm among the lower classes. 1830. Source: JSTOR

Jane Eyre was published in 1847, in the early years of the Victorian Era. In these years, children were often treated as the property of their parents. We must remember that at this time, Thomas Paine's assertion that "all men are created equal" was relatively new. Many people still did not believe in the rights of all men, and believed even less in the rights of children.

In poor families, children as young as five would work all day as chimney sweeps or maids, and all the money they made would go to their parents. Children were a burden to the poor. In richer societies, children were often treated as accessories: raised by nurses or governesses and only allowed in polite company on occasion, to be momentarily admired and then sent away. Children’s books and toys were scarce and were often focused on moral instruction, as children were seen as innately immoral. 

An ironic comic commenting on the perceived ridiculousness of children's physical education. Many Victorians considered the changing sympathy for children's issues outrageous. 1858. Source: JSTOR

Many Victorians believed in the “Law of Recapitulation”, which suggested that the process of creating and developing a civilization—starting from “savagery” and growing into a “civilized community”—was also acted out in the life of a person. Following this logic, children were the most brutish savages and could only become civilized through harsh discipline, work, and fear. However, these negative attitudes about children were not to last. Within 50 years, everything would be completely different.

An excerpt from Aunt Oddemadodd's Whispers about Certain Little People, by William Artist Newman. The dainty little boy dies because he refuses to eat. It was commonly believed that children were innately wicked and were best taught by fear. Source: Google Books

By the end of the Victorian Era in 1900, social movements had begun to champion the rights of children. Protestors requested an end to child labor and an increase in child education. Children began to be seen as innocent angels who deserved education, love, and protection. But this very different attitude towards children didn’t stop advertisers from capitalizing on the image of the angel child. Following the Enlightenment, many people began turning away from Christianity, which had been a societal norm for thousands of years in Europe. And after the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, religious doubt became even more common. Some commentators have even argued that the worship of “the child” replaced the worship of God in late Victorian England because of the fervor with which children were celebrated.

Portrait of two children praying by Oscar Rejlander. Child models and actors became more popular as children's rights became more accepted. Many activists began to worry that this was just a new kind of child exploitation. Source: JSTOR

It may seem strange to us that within forty years attitudes towards children could change so drastically. They had gone from being seen as savages to being idealized as innocent angels. But Charlotte Brontë doesn’t do either of these things in Jane Eyre. Jane consistently insists that she is not wicked, nor is she an angel. She simply is. She is rejected by her adopted mother, Mrs. Reed, for, above other things, not having a “sociable and childlike disposition” (7). If Jane, as a 10-year-old, does not have a “childlike” disposition, that may mean Mrs. Reed has a skewed idea of what a child is.

There are also a variety of children in Jane Eyre with a variety of personalities. Young Jane is brooding and sensitive, Jack Reed is bullying, and Helen Burns is studious and patient. It is almost as if Brontë were suggesting that, yes, there are savage children (Jack) and yes, there are angelic children (Helen). But what about Jane? She is neither demon nor saint. Instead, she is a child who is capable of being kind and harsh, calm and dramatic, angry and sweet. By showing the great variety in Jane's feelings and actions, Charlotte Brontë humanizes her.

One of the original illustrations from Jane Eyre done by F. H. Townsend. It captures the moment Jane confronts Mrs. Reed with her lies. "How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth." Source: Pinterest

As you continue to read Jane Eyre, you’ll notice that the moral dilemmas she faces become increasingly complex. It was relatively easy for Jane to resent Mrs. Reed for her unjust treatment or to hate Jack for his violence. However, as life becomes more complicated for Jane, we see her mature. Her moral sense becomes refined, and she becomes even stronger in her principles. Jane’s personality doesn’t change drastically from childhood to adulthood. Instead, the circumstances around her become increasingly complicated, allowing new aspects of her personality to reveal themselves. Perhaps that is one message we can take away from these first few pages: we are more like children, and they are more like us, than we think.

Further Reading:

The Victorian Child, c.1837-1901

The Age of Alice: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Nonsense in Victorian England

Jane Eyre's Childhood and Popular Children's Literature