I. FRANKNESS AND TRUTH FROM A MAIN CHARACTER “Miss Eyre is rather a brazen miss,” wrote one reader, referring to the passionate main character of Charlotte Bronte’s most famous novel. Indeed, the novel received unfavorable reviews from its early critics for going against deeply entrenched codes of conduct and femininity. Jane’s outbursts of emotion, her then-radical assertion of the woman’s right to go beyond roles assigned by custom and her rejection of borders imposed by class caused controversy. In fact, Elizabeth Rigby calls Jane “unchristian,” saying that Jane Eyre couldn’t have been written by a female. She ultimately says that even if the book was penned by a woman, it was penned by one “who has, for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of her own sex.” (Weisser, p. xiv)