Religion and Jane Eyre

Authors

Bradley Kime, Brigham Young University
Paul Kerry, Brigham Young University

Keywords

religion, Jane Eyre, morality, contemporary critics, Victorian prudery

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

History

Abstract

Modern readers might be surprised to learn that the 1847 publication of Jane Eyre caused an uproar. Plenty of critics praised the novel’s author, but many of the loudest voices were shocked by its content. In a satirical essay the next year, Edwin Whipple surveyed the literary scene: England and the United States, he wrote, were “not many months ago . . . visited by a distressing mental epidemic, passing under the name of the ‘Jane Eyre Fever,’” which produced a widespread fervor of “moral and religious indignation.”¹ Among other censures, The Christian Remembrancer had declared of the novel that “every page burns with moral Jacobinism,”² while the Mirror Monthly Magazine had warned that “religion is stabbed in the dark.”³ Readers today often find the religiosity of Jane Eyre innocuous and its morality downright inspirational. So what were the Victorians so worked up about?

Recommended Citation

Kime, Bradley and Kerry, Paul (2013) "Religion and Jane Eyre," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2013: Iss. 1, Article 349.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2013/iss1/349