The banning of Jane Eyre: “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me”
We’ve had more bad news in the book world lately: From 2025–2026, schools grew their list of banned books to nearly 12,000. The growing movement to ban books is a truly concerning trend, one that we here at WTD Press stand against—and one we’ll write about more. Today, we’ll examine the trend through the lens of one of the newest books to receive the banned book badge of honor: Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre.
I was already staunchly against book bans, but I have to admit that seeing one of my favorite classics added to the list hit me hard. So why has it been banned in some schools, and why is that concerning?
With what feels like a rock in my stomach, I have to assert that Jane Eyre has likely only come to the attention of over-zealous book banning organizations because it’s a novel of self-knowledge and so-called progressive ideas of autonomy, including the type of autonomy that drives a woman to reject the desires of a man simply to be true to herself and her values.
But obviously it’s never that simple, so let’s get into it.
So why was Jane Eyre banned?
It’s hard to say for sure, since there hasn’t been a specific announcement for Jane Eyre other than it being lumped in with the rest of this year’s batch of banned books (particularly for a few school districts in Texas). As Suzanne Trimel puts it, this particular ban, after a century of the novel having a pretty steady place in school reading lists, is a bit of a “head scratcher.”
For the most part, Jane Eyre reflects traditional Victorian values, and important to the issue at hand, there are no sex scenes, although it’s pretty emotionally intense. Trimel’s guess is that Texas’ SB law makes it difficult to determine what falls under the descriptions of “profane” and “indecent,” and it’s possible the book is seen as inappropriate for certain age levels. (But can anyone who voted to ban it tell us what ages and why? Are we just throwing out anything that’s not explicitly aligned with Christian nationalist values?)
But these are all guesses. I think there’s definitely something to what Trimel says, but I have another guess: Jane Eyre teaches people (particularly women) how to think for themselves, stand up for what’s right, and protect their own mental, emotional, and bodily autonomy.
Although it has some issues the modern reader rightly critiques (i.e., her deep and abiding love for a man who’s willing to lock his mentally ill wife in the attic for years), and feminist scholars rightly call it problematic and not a truly feminist novel, when examined in the context of history, I find it to be deeply feminist despite its flaws.
I'm not alone in this reading, with writers and orgs like Lucy Rahim and The Adroit Journal openly arguing for the revolutionary spirit of Jane Eyre, particularly when viewed against the dominant culture of the time. Many people have found it transgressive and downright dangerous (to patriarchal values). After all, Jane is the heroine who gave us these amazing words: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will."
Women who know they can stand up for themselves and resist the desires of men don’t so easily submit to the will of men like Pastor Doug Wilson. He and his misogynistic followers (including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who re-posted Wilson’s interview where he shares these opinions, with the affirming comment, "All of Christ for All of Life"…excuse me as I shudder for the thousandth time) believe that the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, was a mistake. After all, the “man of the house” (gag) simply votes on behalf of the household, right?
(Excuse me, just going to go barf.)
The personal and social importance of Jane Eyre
That’s my theory, but now a more important question: Why is Jane Eyre so important for kids to read?
Before I answer this question, I must contend my own point a bit before beginning. It’s not that Jane Eyre specifically is critical for kids to read—I argue instead that the pivotal elements of the novel are what matter, and certainly there are many other texts both within and beyond the realm of anglophone lit that might qualify as close analogs. For the purposes of this article, which centers the problem of book banning in America and this specific book as a target of that witch hunt, I take up Jane Eyre specifically to highlight the importance of young readers finding their noses in a book about a strong, self-determining woman. I invite you to look beyond this book and particularly into translated texts for others and shout them out in the comments—I’d love to add them to my TBR. And now back to Jane!
For your consideration, I again submit what might be one of the most important statements in the book, spoken by Jane to Rochester when (spoiler alert) she refuses to live as his mistress upon learning that he is already married to a “madwoman” and unable to marry Jane legally:
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will."
This quote has meant so much to so many people, me included. I have the first half of the sentence tattooed on my body; it’s one of what I call my “trauma tattoos.” My own experiences don’t align perfectly with Jane’s, but I know what it means to love someone who thinks they know you better than you know yourself—and someone who pushes you to behave in ways that go against your values and your personal desires.
Unfortunately, I am far from alone in this too-common personal narrative. Luckily, many survivors also understand the power and rebirth that comes when you refuse to give in any longer. The rebirth element is why I chose to pair this quote with a phoenix when I had it done. In my imaginings, that’s what Jane and those of us who understand her on a soul-deep level are: phoenixes rising from the ashes to assert our own power.
Jane’s radical reclamation of her own power and dignity in the face of a man begging her to stay with him—and with her own love pulling at her heart—makes her, in my opinion, one of the strongest heroines I’ve ever read. In telling him no, Jane gave up romantic love and security, because even though he was proposing a precarious form of security, he still provided her with a paycheck, food, and a roof over her head. I speak later on the risk inherent in Rochester’s offer to Jane, but in another view, Jane is an orphan with few prospects, and walking away from a job—and a reference for other jobs—was a huge risk. In fact, she goes on to escape with little to no money in her pocket, and she nearly dies on the moors before St. John and his sisters rescue her. Her decision might make her one of the strongest protagonists I’ve ever read—no matter their gender.
There’s so much nuance, though, to the importance of this novel and others like it.
Self-knowledge, empowerment, and personal agency
In some ways, Jane Eyre seems soft-spoken and easily controlled—if you’re someone who doesn’t know how to recognize true strength beneath the façade of politeness and reserve. In fact, Jane shows us early on how she’ll protect herself and fight injustice. She’s quietly endured years of torment at her cousin John’s hands, trying to earn approval and avoid further punishment from her aunt, but eventually she breaks and attacks him after he hurls a book at her and injures her.
Jane’s schooling at the horrific Lowood Institution teaches her to control herself, and Jane learns that as a teacher and eventually a governess, her position will always be precarious, so she learns to mask.
But that doesn’t mean she completely closes off and gives in to others. No, Jane knows herself quite well. In the lead-up to her decision to take the position at Thornfield Hall, Jane stares at the limitations of her school’s grounds and describes herself this way: "I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer."
Jane is the driver of her transition from predictable schoolteacher to uncertain governess in a far-away home, because she knows herself well enough to know she needs something different—some new experience to sate her desire for more.
She also stands up for herself against Rochester’s manipulations, even before she learns of his wife and flees Thornfield. He taunts and tortures her emotionally, letting her believe that he doesn’t care for her as she loves him, and when he pushes her too far, she cries out another of the most famous quotes from the novel:
"Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!”
What a beautiful expression of knowledge of the self and standing in one’s own power! Jane slams down any pretense of Rochester’s superiority purely because society gives him—a wealthy, older white man—power over others. She is his equal, and she demands he treat her so. And I have another instance that might be even better. After learning of Rochester’s wife and telling Rochester she has to leave, the man has the audacity to remind her how alone in the world she is—she has no family, and he insists that they would live as if they were married in truth.
In her view, and in those of the Victorian readers this book was written for, this is blatant and abusive manipulation. In the face of it, our girl tells Rochester, a much older and experienced man: “Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?" And: "I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss."
Absolute F-the-patriarchy mic drop. 10/10. This woman refuses to give up her own morality—and potentially her own freedom—simply to give into her own desire or, especially, that of a man.
Feminism and gender equality
The fact that Jane can and does assert all of the above? Incredibly feminist. In its true essence, feminism is about gender equality. (Don’t listen to the blowhards who say it’s about man-hating or giving women an advantage over men. Men benefit from societal change that incorporates feminist values—it's only those men who want complete patriarchal control and power who would “suffer.”) Men, even the man she loves (and who claims to love her), tell her what to do and expect to get what they want, whether it’s “proper” behavior, complete obedience, or a version of love (living with a man while unmarried) that would put her entire life (socially and financially) at risk within the rules of their society.
Jane repeatedly rejects or subtly pushes back against these demands. She even tells Rochester, who is much older than her, a man, and quite rich (aka someone society would expect her to obey): "I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience."
Challenging rigid class systems and prejudice
Jane doesn’t stand for women’s rights as human beings alone; she pushes back against the rigid class systems and prejudices that harm anyone. Jane tells her dear friend Helen at Lowood, even as a young child: “I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”
A few pages later, she says, "If people are always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have their way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would grow worse and worse." She knows early on, at least partly due to the abuse of her aunt and cousins, that punishment without cause—a state many of those in poverty during this time (and any time) experience regularly—is wrong. That thread continues through to her experiences with St. John and his household, when she reminds Hannah, "Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime."
Recognizing manipulation and abuse
We’re all trained to love Rochester. After all, he is the love interest and (spoiler alert) Jane does end up with him in the end, once he’s humbled a bit. Plus, even though we’re told he’s pretty ugly (sorry, but Michael Fassbender isn’t a good (physical) representation of Rochester), I think we all have to admit he has a sort of charm that makes up for that—at least until you’ve had the right kind of experience to recognize and protect against that particular kind of charm.
Despite this, Jane Eyre gives readers a view into some of the dynamics of emotional abuse. Kara Koblanski explores this in “What is Love? Baby, Don't Hurt Me: Mr. Rochester’s Male Aggression, Verbal Abuse, and Masterful Manipulation in Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre.” Rochester makes a lot of grand claims about how much he admires Jane and how she’s his equal, but his actions don’t live up to his words. He’s cruel, such as in the scene where he dresses like a gypsy (did we need another red flag?) to gain Jane’s confidence and press her into certain admissions. He pries into her personal life and personal belongings, thumbing through her drawings upon their meeting as if he owns anything of hers. He is, as he says, used to giving orders and having them obeyed, ordering her and others about at his own whims.
He also plays games with Jane and her feelings, as well as the social and financial expectations of another woman, Blanche Ingram, when he plays at pursuing a match with Miss Ingram, throwing his “interest” in Jane’s face and forcing her to join their gatherings purely to witness his attentions and become more and more jealous.
And when shit hits the fan and everyone learns about his locked-up, mad wife, Rochester tries to coerce Jane into a “life of sin,” as they would have put it in Victorian times. While that might seem innocent enough today—after all, they loved one another, so what if they’re not married?—in that era, such a proposal makes it clear that Rochester cares nothing for Jane’s wellbeing and the risks to her if she were to agree.
He claims he would never leave her, but Jane knows that a verbal promise like that is nothing for her to hold on to. If he were to change his mind and lose interest in her, he could leave her with nothing. And having lived with a man in sin once, she could never find another respectable job, leaving her with essentially starvation or prostitution. His begging reveals only his own desperate desires and lack of care for Jane’s future when weighed against his own.
I don’t even have time here to go into his abuse of his wife. From one perspective, he’s actually doing her a kindness compared to what his society did to the mentally ill during that time, and he claims he does that even though his wife used him before she went mad (she is cruel and promiscuous, he says). That doesn’t change the fact that he keeps his mentally ill wife locked in a single room, with only one maidservant as company. And when Jane sees the woman, it’s clear she isn’t kept in the most humane conditions. I can’t do her story justice. For an academic exploration, check out Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic (1979); for a creative exploration of what may have led to the version of Bertha Rochester (née Mason) that we meet, read Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966).
Even though Brönte writes Rochester as the hero, she doesn’t hide or fully forgive his behavior. He loses the love of his life for a time, and when his wife escapes, burning Thornfield and throwing herself off the roof, Rochester loses his sight (although temporarily) in his struggle to save Bertha. Jane only returns and stays with Rochester once he has been thoroughly humbled (and, of course, conveniently free from his original bonds of matrimony).
Romantic love as valuable—but insufficient on its own
One of the things that first draws many readers in to Jane Eyre isn’t all of the above—it’s the romance. I think most of us would find it appealing to meet someone who says to us:
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
And a proposal like this? Swoon-worthy: "I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion."
This is all exceptionally tempting; many of us understand Rochester’s love-bombing on a visceral level. And while Brönte helps us fall in love with Rochester a little bit—and his relationship with Jane—she also reminds us that love alone isn’t always enough. Jane leaves Rochester upon learning of his wife because love is not enough to protect her; she leaves in the face of a man who refuses to think of her protection in the face of his own desires and loneliness.
Love is beautiful, but it’s not always enough.
What the recent banning of Jane Eyre reveals about the growing epidemic of book bans
Jane Eyre isn’t just one more banned book in however many school districts; it’s another example of growing book bans, including those that make no sense on the surface. More bills and gag orders are popping up in various states to “protect” kids and prevent discussion of this administration’s favorite (or rather, least favorite) buzzwords, including things like race, diversity, gender, and anything that portrays American history in a negative (even if accurate) light.
Schools are having a difficult time managing these laws and regulations, so for some, it might be understandable that they become even more restrictive in an effort to protect much-needed funding—even if we (or they) don’t like it.
But why are book bans actually bad? Many people support them in the name of protecting children, which is something most of us want.
How book bans affect us (and our kids)
Though I’m not a parent, I can sympathize with those trying to protect their kids (particularly teens, to whom books like Jane Eyre are assigned). But from conversations I’ve had with parents, I’ve learned that there is only so much protecting you can do. At some point, you have to admit that the world is going to expose them to certain things with or without your consent, and it’s better to prepare your children (in age-appropriate ways, of course), both with specific topics and with skills like critical thinking, self-reflection, and the ability to speak up for themselves. That and a deep comfort with talking to you whenever they encounter confusing or difficult topics; I still remember going to my mom to ask about one of the first books I read as an early middle schooler that mentioned French kissing (yes, I know, how quaint—I was young, okay?) and her leaving space for me to ask questions. Many banned books offer the same kind of opportunities, as long as you’ve nurtured that deep trust and the practice of talking about the hard things.
And kids understand more of what’s going on around them than we think. According to a recent study from First Book, 40% of teachers have conversations about banned books with students, but it’s not just them choosing to have these discussions; 31% of teachers say that it’s students who initiate them.
So if we’re saying we shouldn’t ban books, what’s the benefit, for kids, of reading all these works? The Free Library Foundation lays out several:
Better literacy: Reading and discussing banned books helps kids develop a love of reading and encourages open access to ideas and critical discussion of those ideas. Plus, thought-provoking literature can boost vocabulary, comprehension skills, creativity, and lifelong learning.
Broadening perspectives: The current administration may be on a war path against diverse perspectives, but the truth they’re trying to hide is that diverse perspectives are beneficial for all (except those trying to cling to power). They increase workplace performance, to cite a capitalist benefit, but beyond that and more importantly, they help develop empathy for others, which in turn helps fight against cruelty and mistreatment. Many banned books share perspectives that go against the grain, giving kids opportunities to practice empathy with those unlike them and creative thinking.
Freedom of expression and emotional resiliency: Reading diverse perspectives can help kids learn that they can express themselves and explore their feelings, both of which contribute to more resilient adults who can handle what life throws at them. Our culture has always told us that a stoic “stuffing” of our emotions is what makes people strong, but psychology teaches us that it’s actually quite the opposite.
What would Jane Eyre do? The fight for truth against growing censorship
After all this, I think it’s pretty clear: Jane would join the fight against censorship, especially when it helps perpetuate systems of oppression and prejudice. Jane, after all, is a free thinker who challenges those around her.
Book bans often serve the existing powers more than the people of the nation. They protect conventional ideas of what is “appropriate,” but as Brönte writes in the preface to the 2nd edition of Jane Eyre, “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.”
Let’s fight for critical thinking and the joy of reading by reading and talking about banned books.
Bonus: More amazing Jane Eyre quotes for reflection
Looking for more to chew on, but unable to read (or re-read) Jane Eyre at the moment? Here are a few quotes that didn’t make it into this article:
"It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you."
"You are human and fallible."
"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."
"I am my own mistress."
“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel."
“He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak to a man.”
"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."
“I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong!”
"All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever."
"I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you.”
“You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel. I am bound to you with strong attachment.”
“I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one."
"The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."
"Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear."
