Social conventions in Jane Eyre and Hedda Gabler Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre and Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler were written fifty years apart from each other in the late 1800s. Both Jane and Hedda exist in the same social contexts. They are middle class women in European cultures. The fact that Jane is penniless for much of the novel does not exclude her from the middle class. Jane and Hedda's experiences, education, and values ​​are all middle class. The echo of their words should therefore not be surprising. In detail and in results their stories are different. However, it is the constraints of the same social conventions that guide their different destinies. It is the same confusion between social convention and morality and spirituality that pains their existence. Confusing social conventions with legal, moral and religious codes of conduct is a phenomenon not limited to the 19th century. It is this same confusion that created Jim Crow laws, anti-gay legislation, and fuels the flames of the abortion rights debate. The social conventions of the 1800s did not allow middle-class women to live independently. With few exceptions, women moved from their father's home to their husband's. It was the father's prerogative to arrange a proper marriage. Indeed there may be some carefully selected ones to choose from, but any unauthorized selection would have serious consequences for both men and women. Jane Eyre's mother was disowned because she chose to marry an "unapproved" man. Jane would suffer because of this transgression, which occurred before she was even born. After being orphaned, Jane lives with her aunt Reed. She is continually reminded that she is a dependent and that she is not loved by her... middle of paper ......ton: Prentice Hall, 1992. Ellis, Kate and Kaplan, Ann. Nineteenth-Century Women in Film: Adapting Classic Women's Fiction to Film. Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular, 1999 Jane Eyre. Dir. Christy Cabanne. Perf. Virginia Bruce, Colin Clive and Beryl Mercer. 1934.Jane Eyre. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsborough and Anna Paquin. 1996 Jane Eyre. Dir. Giuliano Aymes. Perf. Timothy Dalton, Zelah Clarke. 1983Jane Eyre. Director Robert Stevenson. Perf. Joan Fontaine, Orson Welles and Margaret O'Brien. 1944Peters, Joan D. "Finding a Voice: Toward a Woman's Speech in Dialogue in the Narrative of Jane Eyre." Studies in the novel. 23 no. 2. (1991): 217-36. Zonana, Joyce. “The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyre.” Signs. 18 no 3. (1993): 592-617