Discuss the character and role of Jane Eyre toward female liberation in the novel Jane Eyre

Women's Rights

Jane Eyre speaks up for herself not only as a human being deserving just treatment but also as a woman deserving the same. In this regard, an important moment in the novel occurs in Chapter 12 when Jane observes that

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

In asserting herself, however, Jane never attempts to exceed the boundaries of moral propriety. For example, after it becomes known that Edward Rochester's first wife is alive, she refuses to accept his invitation to live with him in an adulterous arrangement.

Selfishness