I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror." Is Charlotte stressing a constant here- that no matter the nature of the woman, her worth shall always be measured on a different scale to that of a man's? Of course, you could equally argue against the feminist nature of Blanche's statement. Blanche is depicted as a silly, vain girl, so surely for her to entertain this opinion is a demonstration of her character? To reverse the conventional and portray a woman's beauty as the mark of something negative is daring, but not without its problems. To truly be considered a feminist point, the attention Charlotte devotes to the corruption of double standards between genders should be done so through a villainous male, as opposed to a deceptive female. We immediately assume Blanche to be the antagonist of the novel due to her cold, proud nature, but perhaps this is a reflection of how society has manipulated our judgement of women, rather than a reflection of women in general. To be selfish as a female of the Victorian era is not necessarily a terrible thing, a point expressed in Elizabeth Gaskell's biography:.
"A woman who revealed an independent spirit was rare, if non-existence during Charlotte Brontë's time. Such feelings were typically concealed beneath a stoic exterior, suppressing the creative, emotional, and spiritual self. Such suppression had dangerous consequences an unhappy, unfulfilled life. Charlotte Brontë wrote that imagination was a restless faculty which needed to be heard and exercised. "Are we to be quite deaf to her cry and insensate to her struggles?" Assuming this, is Blanche not just a female who refuses to suppress her true emotions? She is ambitious and rejects Mr Rochester as a rival- however, she is not necessarily deflated after he reveals her to be a pawn in his real agenda, and "extinguishes her flame in a moment.