Bronte having experiencing the superficially her self, trying to make her way as a poet, she heavily criticized the social standards, and the standards that society placed on women throughout the novel. This outlook was part of the reason why the novel had both heavy negative and positive criticism. Also, with the novel being told through a first person narrative by the protagonist, Jane, periodically addressing the reader, it put emphasis on the assertion was that women do not always have to be passive and submissive. .
Jane was never completely passive. At the age of eight, the reader immediately sees that although foully abused by the Reed family, she is strongly opinionated. During her journey to the red room, a form of wrongful punishment after John Reed attacked Jane, depicts her entrap-ment in a life of which she is not happy. It is here that Jane asks the question "why?" regarding her situation, and talks about her feelings of desired to be loved, and wanted by someone, any-one, even by those who abuse her. The stifling fear and sense of urgency that Jane endures in the red room takes a crippling tole on her. The red room symbolizes not only the physical entrap-ment that Jane experiences but also the a social entrapment that she later on feels in her life, as well as the social entrapment of the society at the time placed by conventional mores and stigmas at the time of Bronte's writings. The desire to escape is one that never demnishes, as she begins to fight to escape the unhappiness she feels at what ever cost. Jane finally fainted at the end of her stay in the red room and stayed bed ridden for weeks. Bessie Lee, the servant that took care of Jane after her episode in the red room, and Mr. Loyd the apothecary-Jane wasn't deserving of a doctor-that was sent to Jane after the episode in the red room, were the first people in her life to show affection and apathy toward Jane.