"Jane Eyre" (Charlotte Bronte), The Feminist Tract

In 1837 critic Robert Southey wrote to Charlotte Bronte,
'Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it
ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties,
the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment
and a recreation,' (Gaskell 102). This opinion was not held by
only one person, but by many. Indeed, it is this attitude, one
that debases women and their abilities, to which Charlotte Bronte
responds with Jane Eyre. The purpose of Jane Eyre, not only the
novel, but also the character herself as a cultural heroine, is
to transform a primeval…