Good evening.

My name is Alessandra Nocera and I am going to talk about the gender prerogatives
that used to influence the lives of Orlando and Jane Eyre in their respective novels.
The Victorian Age, which correspond to the reign of Queen Victoria (1847-1901), has been
a very controversial era for what concern the social, literary and political field. During this period,
Great Britain became a Colonial Empire but notwithstanding the reign lived this international
prestige, life conditions of many English citizen did not meet the expectations of a so outstanding
political power. Poverty, child labour and prostitution were very common among people of the
lower class.
A problem that affected the whole of society during these years was about the condition of
women and their role in the everyday life. Even though Great Britain was ruled by an open-minded
woman as Queen Victoria, women in general had to carry the heavy burden of morality upon their
shoulders. You could be the ‘angel of the house’ or a prostitute according to your lifestyle, you had
no other option. Upper and Middle-class girls had to be educated according to the convention of the
period: they had to know how to read – but without being bluestocking – how to dance and knit but
most important they had to know how to take care of their house, their children and their husband.
Men were allowed to live and experience the public world while women were enclosed to the
private sphere, so that their reputation would not run any danger. Women were domestic
companions who embodied gracefulness, politeness, chastity, purity and modesty. (Hoffman 2007:
265)
The Victorian age, with all its gender conventions and impositions, is the background of two of the
most important novels of English literature: Orlando and Jane Eyre: An Autobiography.
Orlando was a young man, from a wealthy family of the XVI century, who lived the first
part of his life according to the privileges of his sex. His life completely changed when after a 7
days sleep, he woke up as a woman. This change was promoted by the presence of three Ladies:
Purity, Chastity and Modesty who can be considered as the personification of the three most
important values according to which a woman must live by. So, her life as a woman started because
of the prerogatives that were proper of her new gender. Orlando’s sex and personal identity did not
change, she simply started performing a different gender than before. In fact, according to Virginia
Woolf, every human being vacillates from one sex to the other while gender is performed through
dress-coding. (Woolf 2014: 124)
The first gender prerogative to be respected in Orlando was the one of Chastity which
represented the preservation of a woman virtue. Being respectable and with a stainless reputation
was the main purpose of a girl who wanted to marry a respectable man. As a thirty years old man,
Orlando had many different love affairs and he was also married to Rosina Pepita so when He
became She this could not be a problem to care about, in fact Orlando had several love relationships
without feeling guilty or inappropriate because there was no virtue to keep safe.
The value of Purity is strictly related to the concept of Chastity. We define something ‘Pure’
when it is immaculate, fair or honest. This was another very important gender prerogative for
women who needed to appear real and without any incertitude about their private or personal life.
Even in this case Orlando did not represent the perfect example of righteousness on the social and
moral point of view. That is because the protagonist of the novel had not a precise gender and
sexual orientation, and so as a consequence doubt and opacity veiled Orlando’s sexual attitudes. She
was androgynous so femininity and masculinity coexisted in her. (González 2004: 77) Orlando was
the perfect exemplification of gender fluidity and subversion of gender binary conventions; through
crossdressing she was able to change her gender according to her needs or sexual desires. (Cervetti
1996: 168) Doing so, the novel embraces different sexual orientations. Each one of the protagonist’s
lovers perform an unidentified gender. For example, at the beginning, Orlando was uncertain about
Sasha’s gender because of the Russian ambiguous clothes she was wearing. Even though that, he
was attracted to her, which means that Orlando sexuality do not conform to the norms of his time.
The last convention to which women must bend was the one of Modesty. An honest woman
must be modest, which means that her pride did not have to overwhelm the one of her husband, she
was not supposed to be selfish or ambitious. She just needed to prove her submissiveness and
obedience. Orlando did not conform to this prerogative either, in fact she wanted to write, to
express her feelings and emotions through poetry. Her purpose was to be famous as much as the
most important authors of the English literature. Orlando was not submissive or passive, she was
active, rebel and subversive.
From the XVI century to the XIX century, conventions for what concern sexuality and
gender where rigid and unchangeable but Orlando always represented the example of
unconventionality. The turning point occurred with the Victorian Age. During this period Orlando
was forced to conform to the social norms of the time. She was not able to continue her literary
work because she was an unmarried woman and as Christy Burns argued: “Orlando faces her third
crisis as she attempts to resist the ‘Spirit of the Age’, which dictates marriage”. (Burns 1994: 353)
Orlando felt the need to have a ring on her finger in order to fit into the new age and in the new
society in which she was living. She met a man, an adventurer, Lord Bonthrop Shelmerdine with
whom she suddenly fell in love and get engaged in order to fulfil her purpose: finish her book.
Conforming in this case became a necessity because social conventions were too strong to be
defeated.
When Jane Eyre: An Autobiography was published, many considered it as a subversive
novel, dangerous for the women who wanted to read it. In this work the main protagonist, Jane, is
an example for all the woman who wanted to live a life oriented towards self-respect and not ruled
by any kind of submission. Even though the novel is animated by a spirit of rebellious
independence against the classic social conventions of the Victorian age, the most important gender
prerogatives of Chastity and Purity are never violated by the protagonist, while for what concern
Modesty Jane is not totally faithful to that value, according to the Victorian beliefs .
Since she was a kid, Jane was considered as a rebel child. She used to spend her time
hidden, reading books so as not to suffer the oppression of her cousin, John. At the time she was
mistreated by everyone and often accused to be the cause of the many quarrels that used to happen
in Mrs. Reed house. Despite that, the first time Jane proved her rebellious spirit was when she
accused her aunt to be the cause of the many abuses she suffered during her life. Lowood, a charity
school where she was sent by Mrs Reed, provided to Jane an education and the amount of upsetting
experiences she lived moulded her personality and her more passionate attitudes.
The unconventional spirit of Jane is particularly highlighted in her stay at Thornfield, where
she met the love of her life Mr. Rochester. First of all, Jane fell in love with her employer who was
a man of almost 40 years old belonging to the upper class. For the Victorian reader, it was not
proper for a girl of eighteen years old to entertain a relationship with a so older man who also
belonged to a higher social position (Griesinger 2008: 48). The love for Mr. Rochester was seen as
something wrong, out of the norm and something that a good honest girl should have never done. It
is what condemned Jane not to conform to the value of Modesty: she fell in love with a man beyond
her reach, that would have allowed her to improve her social condition. But that was not the
purpose of Jane. Many times, throughout the novel she asserts that “women feel just as men feel”
(Brontë 2012: 129) she just wanted to be equal to men and not to exploit the love of Mr. Rochester.
About that, John Peters aver “even though he loves Jane, he clearly believes in the traditional role
of women in the nineteenth-century social order, and part of this view is the idea of woman as idol
[…] Jane fully understands the implications of this position and consistently rejects Rochester's
attempts to turn her into what she is not” which is the Angel of the house of the man she loves. She
also believed that what is important is the inner self of someone and not their social position,
subverting the convictions of the time. (Peters 1996: 63-64)

The values of Chastity and Purity are tried during the novel when Jane discovered that Mr.
Rochester was married to a mad woman, Bertha Mason, who used to live in the attic of Thornfield.
Edward tried to convince Jane to become his mistress and to run away to Europe in order to live
their love story, so at this point she had to decide whether to be happy but in an adulterous
relationship or to suffer for the breakup but with her moral integrity untouched. (Griesinger 2008:
49) Jane’s decision to leave her lover has been painful and upsetting but it was necessary for her not
only to keep her reputation safe but also for a matter of self-respect that run every decision of Jane
during her life. The reasons that led Jane out of Thornfield might seem due to the social conventions
of the time such as for example the will to preserve her virtue till marriage, remaining pure in the
eyes of society but Jane just did not want to stoop to the role of mistress of a married man.

The last unconventional act of Jane Eyre story can be found in the last part of the novel
when the protagonist faces her cousin St. John. Emily Griesinger noticed
If a "Christian feminist bildungsroman " traces the development of an autonomous spiritual "self "
against the social, psychological, and religious constraints of patriarchy, then in this section, Jane
constructs an authentic, personal faith in direct opposition to the patriarchal authority of St. John
Rivers, who seeks to impose what he believes is Gods will on her life. (Ivi: 51)

Even in this case, Jane imposed her beliefs and decisions upon a man, refusing to marry her cousin
because she felt no love for him. If she had married St. John, she would have lived an unhappy life,
based on the word of God but, remaining faithful to herself, she decided instead to follow her heart.
In conclusion, these two novels represent, in two different ways, how some women had the
courage and the inner strength to refuse and subvert some gender prerogatives and social
conventions. Orlando is the novel of sexual and gender awareness, an androgynous person who
lived their life as they pleased. Orlando can be considered as the symbol of personal freedom and
self-love, who has never been upset about the change of sex that is represented by Virginia Woolf
as the most natural thing ever.
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography shows how a little girl without anyone in the world can become a
self-made woman and marry the love of her life. Even though it looks very straightforward for the
Victorian Age, the modalities to reach this goal can be very unconventional for a woman and very
difficult to carry out, constantly remaining faithful to yourself.

Thank you for your attention.

REFERENCES:
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