How key themes and issues are signilled at the outset of Jane Eyre

The Bildungsroman, a novel that details the growth and development of a main character through several periods of life, began as a German genre in the seventeenth century, but by the mid eighteen hundreds it had become firmly established in England as well. Such important Victorian novels as Great Expectations, base themselves on this form, which continues as an important literary sub-genre even today. The Bildungsroman typically told the story of a man growing from boyhood to adulthood. Charlotte Brontë's appropriation of the form for her heroine, represents one of the many ways in which her novel, Jane Eyre, challenges the accepted Victorian conceptions of gender hierarchy, making the statement that a woman's inner development merits as much attention and analysis as that of a man. Through a careful reading of Chapter one, this essay will attempt to suggest ways in which, in the light of my understanding of the novel; key themes and issues are signalled at the novel’s outset.

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