Odenthal 1

Zach Odenthal
SEL 237 01
Dr. Peeler
December 4, 2017

Beauty and the Bronte:

Slaying the Ideal Heroine

Charlotte Bronte was a popular English novelist from the Victorian

period who makes an emphasis on her female characters within her novels.

Originally, she wrote about beautiful fairy-tale-like heroines -- the ones that

were upper-class-beauties with desirable qualities both inside and out.

According to Lori Hope Lefkovitz in her book The Character of Beauty in the

Victorian Novel, Bronte used beauty to “promote” cultural values (1). The

appearance of these female characters was meant to correlate with their

inner worth. However, Bronte slowly transitioned to focusing on inner

qualities of women, rather than external beauty, with her character Elizabeth

Hastings from Juvenilia. By establishing Elizabeth, Bronte was able to use her

novel, Jane Eyre, to publicly shift her perception of a woman’s physical

appearance. She worked to undermine the fairy tale ideas of attraction and

repulsion of appearance, that were the norm in the Victorian period, with her

character, Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte rejects the ideal fairy tale heroines

through Jane’s plainness in order to encourage a focus on women’s actions

and inner qualities rather than their physical appearance. Bronte does this

by contrasting Jane to Beauty from “Beauty and the Beast,” juxtaposing

upper-class beauties in the novel to Jane, revealing the differentiation of

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upper-class and lower-class education, and promoting an ideal of self-

reliance through Jane’s refusal to two proposals.

Bronte’s Jane Eyre draws multiple parallels between her story and

those of fairy tales, including Thornfield, Rochester, and Jane’s trip to see

Aunt Reed. First off, Thornfield is set up as a Bluebeard castle. Jane even

describes the hallways of Thornfield as being “like a corridor in some

Bluebeard’s castle,” which also references to the forbidden room where

Rochester hides Betha (Bronte 112). Focusing on Rochester, he is described

throughout the novel as very beast like, connecting the story to “Beauty and

the Beast.” The language Bronte uses portrays him as having a

“considerable breadth of chest,” a “fur collared” cloak, and a “heavy brow”

(Bronte 119). This language depicts Rochester looking like a beast, which is

not the novel’s only similarity with “Beauty and the Beast.” Both Beauty and

Jane venture home in their stories. Both characters ask permission to travel

home, with the promise of being back shortly. For Beauty, she returns to her

beast close to death. In Jane’s case, she returns with Rochester courting

Blanche Ingram. These similarities overlap the two stories, but only to allow

a proper set up for Bronte to diverge from them.

Though Bronte establishes a similarity between Rochester and the

beast, Jane is explictly no Beauty. As Tatar notes in her introduction to

“Beauty and the Beast,” Beauties were established as gorgeous and virtuous

saviors for men to strengthen “patriarchal norms” (34). Evidently in Jeanne-

Marie Leprince De Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast,” Beauty’s quality and
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value come from her beautiful physical appearance. Beaumont’s Beauty was

characterized as the “self-negating nurturer,” staging her as the ideal of

women-- virtuous beauties. (Cadwallader 237). Opposing this idea, Bronte

consistently describes Jane as plain. This is the most striking element of the

novel because plainness is a “novelty not found in Western myths and fairy

tales,” as Jen Cadwallader explains in her article on “Plain Jane” (235).

Purposefully, Bronte characterizes Jane in this way to contrast fairy-tale-

heroines, yet specifically to target Beauty because she symbolizes the

societal need for women to be perfect.

Bronte uses Jane’s plainness to denounce upper-class values, that

equate beauty to a woman’s value. In this equation, upper-class women are

restricted and not able to develop an identity and gain independence.

Beauty is equated to social class. Labour is suited for plain, lower class

women, while romantic love is meant for upper-class- beauties. Georgiana

Reed, Blanche Ingram, and Rosamond Oliver are established as upper-class-

fairy-tale beauties. The focus on their physical appearance is the cause of

the neglect their characters face. Tatar notes in her introduction to her

anthology of classical fairy tales, “we rarely learn what goes on in the minds”

of fairy tale characters, like these three beauties (xii). All that is focused on is

their beauty. They are treated as objects, and their upper-class-fairy-tale

education left them without inner resources to be independent people. These

women serve to undermine the merge of beauty and virtue evident in fairy

tales and society.

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Georgiana’s beauty makes others forget her faults. In Jane Eyre, the

servants Bessie and Abbot attest to this by commenting that it was “just as if

she were painted” (Bronte 27). Her beauty is admired and focused on like

the character Beauty, but the difference is that readers get to see Beauty’s

inner qualities and know that they are literally at equated with her physical

qualities. However with Georgiana, the focus on her physical beauty is a

“detriment to the development of her character” (Cadwallader 239). On the

other hand, these women like Georgiana are also married for their land, title,

and dowry, giving them monetary value to men. However, these are all

external values, never representing internal value. The societal focus on only

Georgiana’s beauty is “objectifying” and “dehumanizing,” and it is the same

for Blanche (Cadwallader 239).

Blanche Ingram is characterized as a flat character, with no depth.

Only her beauty is left to idolize. Blanche is willing to “shape her persona to

fit an ideal that she thinks will give her the power to attract a husband”

(Cadwallader 240). She places a lot of faith in her appearance. Blanche looks

at beauty and love as a “heritage” and “appanage” of women (Bronte 188).

Blanche flattens her character, “choking off any depth that might point to

the real rather than the ideal” (Cadwallader 239). Bronte manifests this by

Jane drawing a picture of Blanche. Jane works to draw the “loveliest face you

can imagine” with the “softest shades and sweetest hues” (Bronte 146).

Note that drawings are two-dimensional and flat, like Blanche’s depthless

character. She is left only with her beauty to advertise.

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Opposing Georgiana and Blanche, Rosamond is the “face of perfect

beauty” (Bronte 382) and she is “very charming” (Bronte 388). She has the

physical appearance, the intellect, and is “genuinely good -- the very

pinnacle of nineteenth century femininity” (Cadwallader 240). Rosamond

Oliver parallels the fairy tale Beauty. Rosamond’s upper-class education “in

grateful accomplishments and good manners -- has limited her and inhabited

her growth,” like it as done to Blanche and Georgiana (Cadwallader 240).

Bronte describes her as childish, engaging in “child-like activity,” which

emphasizes the stifled development of Rosamond’s character (Bronte 388).

In addition, St. John directly refers to Rosamond as an “object of which is

exquisitely beautiful,” like she is an inanimate painting in a museum.

Rosamond, like Georgiana and Blanche, is flattened to be inanimate objects

of beauty, without autonomy. Because of the neglect of their development,

Bronte suggests that these characters are not ideal, therefore pointing

towards the idealization of Jane’s plainness and the focus on inner-resources

and ability.

Though in society women consider abilities to come second to beauty,

Bronte argues that Jane's’ development of her inner-self “places her on a

higher plane than is usual for Victorian women” (Cadwallader 242). Bronte

illustrates this by using Bessie’s visit to Jane at Thornfield. When Bessie, a

servant from Gateshead, first sees Jane, she focuses only on her appearance:

“it is as much as I ever expected of you: you were no beauty as a child”

(Bronte 96). But, when Jane shows Bessie what she can do, Jane manifests
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herself as equal to, or even better than any upper-class beauty. After

showing Bessie her drawings, Bessie comments that Jane’s drawing is “as

fine a picture as any Miss Reed’s drawing master could paint” (Bronte 96).

Bronte equates Jane to a professional, instead of having Bessie see Jane’s

work as the “smatterings of learning the ideal upper-class woman would

posses to enhance her beauty and amuse her husband” (Cadwallader 242).

By placing Jane on a pedestal, Bronte is able to pick at the education of both

upper-class and lower class women because Jane received both.

Upper class women are given a beauty-centered education focusing

on “weakening” and “objectifying” women (Cadwallader 239). Lower class

women get a “roughening, physical-self-negating” education (Cadwallader

239). As Lefkovitz notes in her book The Character Beauty in the Victorian

Novel, working-class women are often described as “haggards,” while the

upper-class beauties are “over-adorned fixtures” (24). This goes back to the

idea of being fit for labour or love. However, Jane does not fit into a category,

which separates her from the other women of the novel.

Jane received an upper-class education at Gateshead and a lower-class

education at Lowood School, resulting in her autonomy. At Gateshead, Jane

is educated to be the ideal fairy tale heroine, therefore she recognizes that

beauty is equated to a woman’s value in society. Among her earliest

education is from the “tales Bessie sometimes narrated … with love and

adventure taken from old fairy tales and older ballads” (Bronte 9). This

awareness results in the “lack Jane feels because of her plainness”

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(Cadwallader 241). For example, when Rochester proposes to her, she thinks

he is mocking her because she feels she does not fit his qualifications. Again,

when she sees herself in Red Room mirror, she describes herself as a

“strange little figure” (Bronte 14), recognizing that she does not uphold the

standard of societal beauty. Though Jane is still described as plain

throughout the novel, her focus shifts to her inward qualities and abilities

after Lowood school.

At Lowood, she is educated and prepared for a life of work rather than

love, like the lower-class charity children. Though the education system at

Lowood treats the girls cruelly, it stresses inner value versus physical

qualities, which “allows Jane to develop in ways that would have remained

neglected” at Gateshead (Cadwallader 242). A lot of attention is focused on

Jane’s ability at Lowood, opposed to her appearance. Janes is developing

independence and the urge to devise a plan for her own happiness. She

moves away from the fairy-tale heroine, and focuses on the “desires of the

mind” instead of the “wants of the body” (Cadwallader 242). Jane identifies

as a heroine, but an improved version of the norm -- one ready to take

agency. Purposefully, Bronte never has Jane complain about her lack of

beauty while she is at Lowood. Throughout the novel, Bronte mentions her

plainness, for example, when looking in the mirror at the red room, and when

she is about to get married. But, Jane never mentions her plainness at

Lowood. Especially after Brocklehurst is gone, Lowood becomes a very

feminine location, allowing for women to develop themselves. She does not
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feel shame at what she is lacking, instead, “Jane’s Lowood experience

teachers her to feel satisfaction with her inner resources” (Cadwallader 243).

With Jane’s dual education, she learned to be autonomous and also develop

a sense of self, that allows her to be her own person; she pursues and

desires ability over appearance, which readers see again through her two

marriage proposals.

Through Jane’s marriage proposals from Rochester and St John, Bronte

denounces the theory that appearance is the defining factor of inner

qualities. First off, Rochester tries to make Jane a fairy tale heroine by

imprisoning her with beauty. After he proposes to Jane he comments, “you

look blooming, and smiling and pretty … truly pretty this morning. Is this my

pale little elf? Is this my mustard-seed? This sunny-faced girl with the

dimpled cheeks and rosy lips; the satin-smoothed hazel hair, and the radiant

hazel eyes?” (Bronte 207). Rochester does not even describe Jane correctly,

as Jane notes: “I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake:

for him they are new-dyed, I suppose” (Bronte 271). Rochester failed to

actually see Jane for her true appearance because he was too busy “waxing

poetic on the heroine transformed by his love” (Cadwallader 243). The issue

with Rochester’s proposal is that he tries to turn Jane into something she is

not, and change her identity. He tries to imprison her with beauty: “I will

myself put the diamond chain round your neck … and I will clasp the

bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings”

(Bronte 271). These are all images of entrapment. He will “chain” her with a
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diamond necklace, “clasp” her wrists with bracelets, and weigh her arms

down with rings. Bronte argues that beauty is a women's prison, and she has

Jane refute Rochester because of this. Jane realizes the danger of losing her

identity and states that “I will only be myself” (Bronte 272). Then again on

her wedding day, she looks in the mirror and sees “a robed and veiled figure,

so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger (Bronte

300). Jane’s image looks alien to herself. Jane’s identity has been “hidden

away” by “Rochester’s attempt to transform her into an idealized fairy tale

beauty” (Cadwallader 244). The image of herself is alien to her, just like it

was in the Red Room at Gateshead-- alluding to Rochester imprisoning Jane

in beauty.

To turn Jane into a fairy tale heroine, Rochester imprisons her

physically, but St John attempts to imprison Jane’s mind. At first, it seems

that St. John’s alternative to Rochester is being considered by Jane. Gilbert

suggests in “Plain Jane’s Progress” that Rochester “ended up appearing to

offer a life of pleasure, a path of roses [with concealed thorns],” while St John

“proposes a life of principle, a path of thorns (with no concealed roses)”

(799). All leading up to his proposal to Jane, St John’s character works on

Jane’s “mental enslavement” in an attempt to have a wife “formed for

labour” because “love has no place in his plans” (Cadwallader 244). Jane

even notes that “by degrees he acquired a certain influence over men that

took away my liberty of mind” (Bronte 419). Slowly, Jane’s autonomy is being

stifled. St John continually assesses Jane and tries to instill in Jane’s

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reasoning that she is “formed for labour-- not for love” (Bronte 438). The

labour life is a position that society places lower-class women in, while love is

for the upper-class beauties. Jane acknowledges that she does not have a

necessary place in society, and in her opinion, she is “formed for labour and

love” (Cadwallader 244), which is why she ultimately declines St John’s

proposal.

Through Jane’s decline to St. John’s marriage and her running away

from Rochester, Bronte reveal’s Jane’s definition of marriage: “a union based

on mutual love rather than selfish gain” (Cadwallader 244). Both proposals

use Jane as a “useful tool” (Bronte 438). “Just as Beauty rescues the Beast

through her selfless, angelic love, so does Rochester hope that Jane will be

the key to his salvation” (Cadwallader 243). With Rochester, Jane would have

been his saving angel of salvation, and with St John, Jane would have just

been his obedient worker-wife. Therefore, Jane declines both men because

she knows she is not a man’s object to use to their advantage.

When Jane goes back to Rochester, they get married because they are

equals -- now that Rochester is stripped of his primitive nature after being

blinded and amputated. Rochester sees Jane as both “fairy-born and human-

bred” (Bronte 462). Having to go through two proposals, Jane finally has

established her independent identity, in a new sense. Jane’s discovery of her

cousins at Marsh End “represents the end of her pilgrimage, her progress

toward selfhood” (Gilbert 799). This could not happen until after she rejects

both St John and Rochester; she learns that “principle and law in the abstract
 Odenthal 11

do not always coincide with the deepest principles and laws of her own

being” (Gilbert 799). Additionally to Jane’s new sense of identity, Rochester

gained “a sense of self-responsibility” at Ferndean (Cadwallader 244). They

both have come to an understanding of the importance of “individual

salvation” (Cadwallader 244). Bronte makes this clear by making the second

entrance to each other’s life parallel to the first. The first time they met,

Rochester prompts Jane to make herself useful. Once again, Rochester relies

on Jane for help, but this time his reliance is just physical reliance. Rochester

is not the needy-beast that needs transformed anymore. As Tatar notes in

The Classic Fairy Tales Norton Anthology, the Beast searches and receives

redemption from Beauty in fairy tales (30). However, Jane is not being

Beauty, in the sense of humanizing Rochester. As Cadwallader notes,

Rochester “has done all of the work of an interior transformation himself”

(245). Instead of Jane getting a prince, she gets man who is burned, blinded,

and with one hand. Jane does not need a fairy tale prince because she is her

own knight and shining armor. This is Bronte’s final separation from Beauty

and the Beast. She asserts a blend of fairy tale romance with the importance

of self-reliance, unlike the fairy tales where the characters desperately need

saving.

With Bronte’s rejection of the ideal fairy tale heroine through Jane’s

plainness, she works to embolden women to feel valuable, regardless of their

looks. This is still an issue in today’s society. Retail markets have reinvented

the fairy tale heroine as models and socialites. Yet, screen writers like
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Shonda Rhimes have continued to encourage Bronte’s rejection of the fairy

tale heroine. How else would the 21st century culture have heroines such as

Meredith Grey and Olivia Pope working to empower women on television?

Also, in 2016, a woman ran for the presidential election of the United States.

Bronte helped to pave this path. Literature is the reflection of society, but it

can also be a way of transforming it. Bronte sparks a new generation of

women who are bold -- women that take action -- women that make men

realize that they are people too. Bronte’s purpose is to make women realize

their possibilities, and, as Beyoncé would put it, be fierce and slay.
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Work Cited

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Edited by Deborah Lutz, 4th ed., w. W. Norton &
Company, 2016.

Cadwallader, Jen. "'Formed for Labour, Not for Love': Plain Jane and the
Limits of Female Beauty." Brontë Studies: The Journal of the Brontë
Society, vol. 34, no. 3, Nov. 2009, pp. 234-246. EBSCOhost,
setonhill.idm.oclc.org/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2009583130&site=ehost-live.

Gilbert, Sandra M. "Plain Jane's Progress." Signs, vol. 2, no. 4, 1977, pp.
779-804. EBSCOhost, setonhill.idm.oclc.org/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=mzh&AN=0000212928&site=ehost-live.

Lefkovitz, Lori Hope. The Character of Beauty in the Victorian Novel. Univ.
Microfilms Internat. Research P, 1987. Nineteenth-Cent. Studies.
EBSCOhost, setonhill.idm.oclc.org/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1987096834&site=ehost-live.

Tatar, Maria. “Introduction” The Classic Fairy Tales

(Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions), 2nd ed., W. W. Norton &
Company, New York, pp. xi-xxvi.
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Tatar, Maria. “Introduction: Beauty and the Beast” The Classic Fairy Tales
(Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions), 2nd ed., W. W. Norton &
Company, New York, pp. 30-83.