After reading both Jane Eyre and Lorde, first, I found that both stories are told by women and then that there is some connections between them such as difference of race, sexuallity, class and age.  They both arguing that silence doesn’t help or resolve differences. In addition, women have to learn how to speak for themselves in order to be free. In other word, they have to express their feelings and thoughts.

Lorde is a black lesbian woman and Jane is an orphan girl. In Lorde’s story, Simone de Beauvoir said “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting” This means that women need to be strong enough and to have some goals in order to live in a community.

In Jane’s story, we saw that at the beginning she was abused by her aunt and her children. But when she  learned that silence can not help her or fix what she was going through, she decided to speak out about her thoughts and feelings to her aunt ” I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty. ” This passage shows jane declaration about how she feels about the way her aunt her children treat her. This passage shows a clear sense of justice and a recognition of her need for love. It also marks Jane’s emotional liberation. Because since the day she was locked in the red room she still has a mental feeling in her spiritual suppression, and it is not until she speaks these words to Mrs Reed that she feels her soul begin to expand.

Aminata Toure