SOURCE: Ellis, Lorna. “Jane Eyre and the Self-Constructed Heroine.” In Appearing to Diminish: Female Development and the British Bildungsroman, 1750-1850, pp. 138-61. Lewisburg, Pa. and London: Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses, 1999.

In the following essay, Ellis contends that Jane Eyre, along with Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Betsy Thoughtless, conforms to the female Bildungsroman genre by presenting a heroine who manages to develop and grow while upholding the expectations of society. In addition, Ellis remarks that Jane Eyre is notable for Jane's profound sense of self, which paves the way for later non-Bildungsroman novels in which the heroine spurns societal conventions.

Jane Eyre marks the last major step in the history that I have been constructing of the female Bildungsroman. It demonstrates most concretely the distinct characteristics of the genre: its combination of conservative and subversive elements, its link between social alienation and material concerns...