MONEY AND FREEDOM IN BRONTE NOVELS

MONEY AND FREEDOM IN BRONTE NOVELS

In Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë, the desire for freedom is a constant theme. Although freedom in Victorian society is usually associated with having money, it is actually much more complicated than that—at least in these Brontë novels. Freedom comes in different forms, and usually with a price.
In Jane Eyre, Jane is continually yearning for liberty and independence, but she cannot make up her mind about what kind of freedom she desires. Throughout the novel, she is offered several different types of freedom. As a child, she dreams only of freedom from Mrs. Reed, yet she already understands that with it there comes a price—even though she is miserable living with the Reeds, she would rather remain with them than live with poor relations: “Poverty looks grim to poor; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, res...