Write about how Bronte presents the role of women in society in Jane Eyre

In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the obvious place to start is with the character of Jane. Jane is a governess working for Mr Rochester, a role which immediately suggests that women are expected to work in domestic contexts such as in caring for a child. In the novel, it is clear that Jane is subject to the social expectation that she should be reserved and her work in the house of a man with a higher social status than she exacerbates these expectations. As such, Jane's behaviour maintains a detachment from emotion, elucidated to the reader when Mr Rochester, disguised as a gypsy fortune teller, tells her she is "cold, because [she] is alone" and "sick; because the best of feelings [...] keeps far away from [her]". These adjectives suggest that Jane's repressing of her feelings to conform to society are emotionally damaging to her, but far better than the alternative.
The alternative - a woman who follows her passions alone - is present in Jane's foil, Bertha Mason. Bertha is Mr Rochester's eschewed wife, locked away in the attic where she grows madder. Bertha is the opposite of Jane and demonstrates what happens to a woman who does not demonstrate the same self-control of Jane. Entirely eschewed by society, she is described as "savage" and compared to an animal, wounding her brother by biting him. This imprisonment and furthering of Bertha's madness is, according to Rochester, the result of her being "intemperate and unchaste", suggesting both that even Rochester, who had criticised Jane's careful self-control, expects a woman to maintain a calm and chaste manner. As such, the contrast between Jane and Bertha demonstrates that Bronte perceived the woman in society as being under the expectation to behave with impressive self-control and measured calmness.