What Women Want: Jane Eyre‘s Guide for Guys
by Marilyn Green Faulkner

“All works of genius are contemporaneous both with their own times and with ours.”

The story is told of a man who, having freed the proverbial genie from a bottle, was granted one wish.

“I’d like you to build me a bridge to Hawaii,” he said. “I love to go to Hawaii and that way I could just drive there whenever I want.”

“Master, think again,” warned the genie. “Such a bridge would be almost impossible to undertake. Think of the depth of the pilings, the massive job of construction! And a bridge like that would be hard on the environment, filling the ocean with yet more waste and debris. You have only one wish. Don’t squander it on something selfish. Use your wish to better mankind or to improve yourself at least.”

“Well, replied the man, perhaps you are right. There is one thing I lack. I don’t understand women. I have had two failed marriages and my third one is in trouble. I don’t understand why women act the way they do. Why do they get angry over such trifles? What do they mean by those long silences? And how about that look? What does that mean? I know if I could just understand women my life would be better, so that is my wish. Genie, make me understand what women want.”

“Master,” replied the genie after a long pause. “Were you thinking of a two or a four-lane bridge?”

The success of such books as “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” and movies like “What Women Want” attests to the fact that men and women have trouble understanding each other. Conventional Victorian literature did very little to increase that understanding, concerned as it was with creating an ideal feminine and masculine image to which characters were largely faithful. Heroes were brave, strong and full of action. Heroines were beautiful, passive, selfless, and seemed to faint a lot! Then came Jane Eyre, a novel written by a quiet parson’s daughter living a secluded life in the Yorkshire moors. Jane Eyre stunned Victorian society with its plain little orphan heroine, devoid of social status or graces, who stubbornly refuses to take her assigned place in the hierarchy. Instead of being grateful for the family who raises her, she despises them for their cruelty and hypocrisy. She utterly rejects the Calvinist Christianity that is used to justify starving and freezing schoolgirls to bring them into submission. Above all, she craves action, and grows bored and restless when life holds no challenge for her. What kind of a heroine is this? The instant success of the novel proved that, contrary to the beliefs of publishers at the time, the female reading public was waiting for just such a heroine to arise.

Jane Eyre was published under a nom de plume, as were all the books written by the famous Bronte sisters. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte called themselves Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell respectively, and had good reason for doing so. After a time of relative freedom for women in publishing, the Victorian age brought new restrictions on feminine roles. Writing was not considered an appropriate activity for a lady, and there was little chance that these novels would have been accepted under a female name. The book was immediately attacked by critics for its insistence on the idea that personal fulfillment is an acceptable goal for a woman just as it is for a man. Though this seems hardly revolutionary stuff to us today, the tone of the heroine shocked polite society. Mrs Rigby, a popular columnist of the day, wrote of the orphan Jane Eyre:

“She has inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature – the sin of pride.and she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an orphan, friendless, and penniless – yet she thanks nobody, and least of all Him.on the contrary, she looks upon all that has been done for her not only as her undoubted right, but as falling far short of it.” (Quarterly Review 84, December 1848)

What shocked the world about Jane Eyre is the same quality that shocked polite society about Joseph Smith, a contemporary of Charlotte Bronte’s who also faced some pretty scary ministers. Rather than accepting the rigid doctrines that a degenerated form of Christianity held out, both chose instead to look within and Heavenward for a new definition of truth. Jane Eyre is a deeply spiritual person who longs for a life of usefulness and service. She is, however, unwilling to accept the harsh cruelty of her masters as treatment that is naturally due her as an orphan. She persists in believing that she should be treated on an equal level with others, and is willing to treat them in the same way. Above all, she longs for a spirit-to-spirit relationship with a partner who knows her as she knows him, with whom she can share a productive life. She does not wish to be owned, coddled or catered to, nor does she wish to sacrifice her life in serving a brutish tyrant. She seeks a partnership of mutual respect between equals. This was not what Victorian society prescribed, but it must have been what an overwhelming number of women really longed for, because Jane Eyre was embraced by the public immediately and has been an enduring favorite ever since. As Joyce Carol Oates said, “It is, in its directness, ruefulness, and scarcely concealed rage, startlingly contemporary and confirms the critical insight that all works of genius are contemporaneous both with their own times and with ours.”

Guys, if you want to know what women really want, read Jane Eyre.

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