Although the authors and genres of Jane Eyre and Aurora Leigh's works are distinctive, the messages and methods of communication within both are completely comparable. Both authors aim, among other things, to expose the plight of their female contemporaries and offer strong suggestions for how the injustices faced by women might be corrected. The heroines of both stories, Jane and Aurora, face subjugation and oppression of all kinds, much of it a direct result of their gender. Both authors similarly use certain literary devices to symbolize both incarceration and notions of liberation for their protagonists. These two aspects of the stories, slavery and freedom, continually highlight the main conflict of the two plots: the struggle between ideal aspirations and the confinement of practicality and reality, specifically applied to women (Pell 397 ). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayOne of the most easily recognizable symbols in both stories is the house. In Aurora Leigh and Jane Eyre, the home becomes, while both women are still girls, associated with various forms of domestic servitude. The place where Jane spent the first ten years of her life, Gateshead, was a beautiful and stately house and also the most understandable object of her disgust. Her parents having died at a young age, Jane was severely abused by her late maternal uncle's family. Amid the splendor of wealth, she was physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, and continually reminded of her inferiority and isolation. Despite the quality of its surroundings, Gateshead will always represent the worst period of Jane's life. Once transferred to Lowood, a poorly administered, charity-funded boarding school, Jane proclaimed, "I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for Gateshead and its daily luxuries" (Bronte 24). For Jane, moving from Gateshead to Lowood was the first small step towards independence. Although at Lowood Jane became happier than she had been in her short life, after eight years the walls finally began to confine her in unbearable ways. She lamented: “I went to my window…there were Lowood’s skirts; there was the hilly horizon. My gaze passed beyond all other objects to settle on the most remote peaks, the blue peaks: these were the ones I wanted to overcome: everything that was within their limits of rocks and heather seemed a prison ground, the limits of exile” (Bronte 85). The physical confinement of school began to constantly remind Jane of the social limits they imposed on her; as long as she stayed, her life would not change or improve. Thornfield, the estate to which Jane comes to free herself from Lowood as a governess, offers her better pay, a little more independence and quality living conditions. However, the house, much like the others, reminds Jane that she is not entirely hers and is still dependent on the patronage of the rich. One day, when Jane came home, she thought, “I didn't like going back to Thornfield. To cross its threshold was a return to stagnation: to cross the silent hall, to ascend the dark staircase, to seek my own little solitary room… it was to completely assuage the faint excitement aroused by my walk” (Bronte 117). Although she had a happier existence, her life in Thornfield did not makethan perpetuate its permanent “protection” against the world. Her later laments on the subject are those she uttered not only for herself, but for all the women of her time: "What good it would have done me at the time to have been tossed about in the storms of 'an uncertain and difficult life, and having a harsh and bitter experience has taught me to long for the calm in the midst of which I now complain! » (117). Bronte writes, through Jane's predicament, about the intended protection of women that essentially paralyzes them. Aurora Leigh also finds the house to be an oppressive place, but unlike Jane, it is the idea of ​​the house that confuses her more than the building itself. While she is quite young, the expected idea of ​​a home is imposed on her by her aunt to whose care she is entrusted upon the death of her father. The young girl receives books intended to instruct future little wives, “books that boldly assert / Their right to understand their husband’s words / When they are not too profound, and even to respond / With pretty “that you like it” or “That’s how it is. » Her aunt assures young Aurora that everything will be fine for the young girls “as long as they keep quiet by the fire” (Browning 51). When Aurora shows resistance to this accepted and almost inevitable feminine destiny, this same aunt tells her: “I know I haven't crushed you enough/To flatten you and bake you until you get a healthy crust /For domestic uses and conveniences” (Browning 70). ). So the idea of ​​the house was tainted early on in the strong young mind of Aurora Leigh and also, through these vivid images, in the mind of any reader who comes across her story. Beyond her aunt's teachings, Aurora is led to despise this idea. of the house also by his cousin, young Mr. Romney Leigh. She has known him most of her life and comes to love him as a friend, although she is not suited to any other type of relationship. In one passage of the poem, Aurora becomes furious when her cousin refuses to take her writing seriously. He reduces the feminine gender to “Simple women, personal and passionate/You give us greedy mothers and perfect wives” (Browning 81). In her mind, this is undoubtedly complimentary, although Aurora sees it differently. She refutes his comments, explaining that women, although they often turn out to be only what he says, become that through carelessness. She maintains that "a woman is always younger than a man/of equal age because she is not allowed/to mature by the sun and air outside/and to wear long clothes beyond the age of walking” (Browning 85). Ironically, this conversation also includes a marriage proposal from Romney, an invitation to Aurora to become a member of this expected household that she had already come to despise. She predictably and reasonedly rejects, knowing that the proposal is merely a social element of convenience and economy, rather than a gesture motivated by love or passion, for which she might consider entering into such a CONTRACT. In addition to the fact that the house and marriage become symbols. of constriction for Aurora, she also speaks of Britain as a tamed or domesticated country that imposed itself and its expectations on her. She was born and raised partly in Italy, something her aunt continually tries to make her forget, finding the influences far too reminiscent of the unapproved woman her brother, Aurora's father, chose to marry. Yet it is in these memories of the Tuscan landscape that Aurora feels free. Although she learns to love Britain, she sees it as “not great nature. Not my chestnut trees/De Vallombrosa” (Browning 57). Just like theAurora's memories of nature in Italy provide her with a sense of inner freedom, Jane Eyre's reflections on her natural surroundings provide her with hints of liberation. In her description of Moor-House, the place she comes to live after Thornfield, Jane uses primarily natural language, treating the house as if it were part of nature itself. “They liked their house sequestered. Me too, in a small gray and antique building, with its low roof, its mesh doors, its moldy walls, its avenue of old fir trees, all pushed sideways under the pressure of the mountain winds; his garden, dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers other than hardy species would bloom—found a charm both powerful and permanent” (Bronte 354). This is the most positive and sentimental description Jane gives of all the houses in which she resides. Was it because the house itself had a special charm? Maybe, but more likely because it was the first place where she felt true kinship and hence a small sense of independence. It is no wonder that Jane would choose to associate a place dear to her with nature, for it is clear throughout the novel that nature is her only ever-present comfort. She explains that "I have no other relative than the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask for rest... Nature seemed benevolent and good to me: I thought she loved me, except that I was; and I, from whom man could only expect distrust, rejection, insult, I clung to her with filial affection” (Bronte 328). At one point in the story, as Jane becomes increasingly subject to the prospect of accepting the marriage proposal of her cousin, St. John Rivers, against her better judgment, nature, in a sense, frees him by carrying the voice of his true love to the wind, reminding him where his heart is: “It is the work of nature. She was awake and performed no miracles, but she did her best” (Bronte 425). Although Jane eventually finds independence in money, kinship in a new family, and happiness in the arms of the man she loves, nature supports her and provokes her toward greater things from the beginning of his life. Amid Jane and Aurora's small victories, the desperation of women of limited financial means is a theme that permeates both stories. Jane Eyre, from a young age, is constantly reminded by those around her that due to her poor financial situation, she will always be forced to live in service to others. One of her least favorite domestic workers in Gateshead, Miss Abbot, explains to her that "they will have a lot of money, and you will not have any: it is up to you to be humble and to 'trying to make you pleasant. for them” (Bronte 13). Even Bessie, the most well-meaning and caring of Jane's childhood friends, advises her: "You should try to be useful and pleasant, then maybe you will always have a home here" (Bronte 13). Because of her situation, young Jane is prevented from even dreaming of the independence she will one day achieve. When she is older, Jane remembers her childhood thoughts: “Freedom, excitement, pleasure: really delicious sounds; but nothing more than what appears to me; and so empty and ephemeral that it is just a waste of time to listen to them. But servitude! This must be a fact” (Bronte 86). The importance of wealth is made clear to Jane when she was a child. Her doctor, in response to her expression of intense personal misery, asks the ten-year-old if she would like to seek out and live with paternal relatives, even though they would likely be poor. Jane can't see past her upbringing and assumes that, 31:4 (1977): 397-420