Jane Eyre is one of the most popular pieces of fiction ever written. At different periods since its publication it has been accused of immorality, of irreligion, of being unfeminine or too feminine, of alarming independence from convention, or too much reliance on it, of rejecting male supremacy or encouraging. It has been called an account for bad structure, bad characterization, lack of control, lack of ideas, lack of philosophy and for containing irreconcilable paradoxes. As times changed, so did the views of the readers.
The author Charlotte Bronte has been criticized as well as praised about her writings. She was described by George Lewes to George Elliot as ?A little plain, provincial, sickly looking old maid?, yet George Elliot added to her journal having been so overwhelmed by the novels ?What passion, what fire in her!? Elizabeth Gaskell, her biographer as well as fellow female Victorian novelist remarked : ?In general there she sits quite alone thinking over the past .
English: Title page, first edition, en:Jane Eyre.
English: North Lees Hall, Hathersage. Charlotte Br...
English: North Lees Hall and out buildings Otherwi.... . She has the wild strange facts of her own and her sisters lives, - - and beyond and above these she has the most original and suggestive thoughts of her own: so that, like the moors, I felt on the last day as if our talk might be extended in any directions without getting to the end of any subject . . .? Charlotte was born in 1816 and died at the age of 39 in 1855. Like her brother and sisters she died of consumption. She grew up on the moors in Haworth in Yorshire. For the Bronte children, they were poor and had very little to do.
Their father was Reverend Patrick Bronte who had been appointed Parson there. He was a strict martinet, very disciplined and self-righteous. All of the Bronte children were...