You've probably noticed that a great deal of the readings recently have been non-fiction--essays, treatises, manifestos, such as Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication for the Rights of Woman. Today, we read Chapter 1 of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to see how Wollstonecraft's concerns were "fictionalized" during the Victorian era. (For those students who were absent, you can access Jane Eyre on literature.com and read Chapter 1 right from your computers.) This is good practice for critical analysis--the practice of reading a piece of literature from a critical perspective. Our perspective here is: First, consider Wollstonecraft's key concerns (education of women, lack of property/inheritance rights, dependence on and subservience to men). How do they "show up" in Jane Eyre? Key background facts in Jane Eyre: Mrs. Reed is Jane's aunt by marriage; she was married to Jane's paternal uncle. Jane is an orphan. After her parents died, her uncle took her in and by all accounts felt great affection for Jane. However, her uncle has since passed as well. Jane lives with Mrs. Reed (her aunt), her three children, and their nurse (equivalent of a nanny). On his deathbed, he made his wife promise to treat Jane "as her own children." What we see, however, is something very different. Jane