Bronte and Douglass

Gender Formation as a Race, Class and Education Construct

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass both reveal a great deal about the impact of race, class and education on gender formation. Yet, gender formation includes both the formation of male and female roles. What is unique and most interesting about a comparison of this phenomenon in these works is that they both demonstrate how male and female gender roles are shaped by environmental factors, i.e., race, class and education. Typically, males are considered to be a dominant social force that limits the role of the female gender. However, as we shall see, both male and female gender formation are impacted by the environment, i.e., race, class and education.

In Jane Eyre, the author’s intent is for us to identify with the struggles of the female title character to find love and meaning for herself as she comes to terms with a harsh upbringing, dominant manipulative types, and suffers from being born plain and poor (read of the lower-classes). However, through education, courage and endurance, Jane comes to find love with the dark and handsome but mysterious and brooding master of Thornfield, Rochester. Jane is limited by her social or class position and she is timid and unsure of herself around those who dominate her. However, through education and travel she comes to find the courage and wisdom to be her own wom

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as Helen tells Jane when noticing her bitterness and resentment over those who tried to limit her joy of life, “She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because, you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine: but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs” (Bronte 58). Jane is able to find herself and love by not allowing the slings and arrows of the past to be branded on her heart or diminish her role as a female who needs love. In Frederick Douglass autobiographical work, we see that education and race play a major role in shaping an individual’s identity formation be they male or female also. Because of being black, both males and females were forced into slavery and treated to all manner of abuses. However, Douglass teaches us that through education one can rise above these kind of inhumane environments without becoming bitter or resentful in a similar mann
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1581
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)