“Words could not Vent Half their Rage”: School Stories and the Invention of Jane Eyre

Abstract

While Jane Eyre’s (1847) generic debts have come under academic scrutiny, little attention has been given to its debt to the early girls’ school story. This genre strategically challenges didactic traditions that favor “good” women over authoritative, “bad” women. These works register a discomfort with the writing persona that becomes increasingly prominent in the nineteenth century, the power of revision and the constriction of women's lives within the educational establishment. Charlotte Brontë’s canonical novel builds on the form and content of the early girls’ school story. Over the course of the novel, Brontë demonstrates that women's power lies in observation and exposure much more than in education, and, like the school stories, Jane Eyre questions the reality of women's power, the true virtue of “goodness” and the importance of composition.