Class dynamic (and their relative morality) is a central theme in both Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre, yet these two texts display this theme differently. Dickens focuses his novel on the oppression of one group (working class) by another (the aristocracy) leads to revolution and the creation of an indiscriminate legal system. The working class characters such as Mr. Cruncher and the Mr. and Madam Defarge are less adherent to moralistic customs. Mr. Cruncher doesn’t approve of his wife praying and he is a body snatcher. The Defarge’s are planning a social coup, in which Madam Defarge is arguably the main organizer and after they succeed they are chief coordinators in the death of many individuals (the guard who gets his head cut off and the attempted execution of Charles Darnay, for example). The middle class individuals: Lucy, Charles Darnay, Miss Pross, Sydney Carton, and Mr. Lorry, are portrayed as socially upright. Miss Pross is a doting mother figure to Lucy. Lucy is the daughter-wife-mother trifecta of womanhood. Charles Darnay, Mr. Lorry, and Dr. Manette are all hard working business men who attempt to provide for the women (particularly Lucy). (I don’t mention the Marquis because he is an aristocrat and is likely shaped by growing negative sentiments towards the aristocracy.)
On the other hand, Brönte uses a first person “boundary” character (someone who straddles the class line due to particular socio-economic circumstances) in order to express the outright and subtle disregard for governesses (Poovey, 126). The moral interaction of class that is fairly well delineated in Dickens is undone in Jane Eyre. Jane is a moral character, one who does not tell lies, learns to be religiously minded thanks to her friend Helen, and is diligent in her work (if she is to be believed as a first person narrator, which is always questionable). While Jane is supposed to be of the middle class, many (upper) middle class characters such as Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklhurst, and Lady Ingram show disdain towards her. Her moral character seems to align with a middle class ideology. However, Jane is not fully within the middle or working class causing her to fall into a limbo from which (no matter her actual moral character) cannot fulfill middle or working class moral ideologies.
Some of the reasons this stark contrast may exist between Brönte’s portrayal and Dickens’ work is their biography. Dickens’ is more directly concerned with the notion of revolution and legal changes because he was a legal clerk, and Brönte is more concerned with the status of governesses because she was one. Another difference could be temporal. These two novels were written ten years apart. I have not yet decided on how these two depictions of class (and their appended morality) should be read but there is a question raised by the similarities and differences between these representations.
I like how you recognize Jane as a limbo character, however, while I agree with the differences that you point out, I think you could potentially argue that many of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities are in limbo between classes, even if they don’t use this positioning in the same way Bronte does. Darney is from an aristocratic background, but lives most of his adult life as middle class. Dr. Manette is middle class, but lives a large chunk of his life in poverty conditions in prison (and he does in fact use the time he served in prison as much as he possibly can during Darnay’s trial). And the Defarges, although working class, own an apparently successful wine shop, at one point even appearing to cater or serve some sort of similar function at Versailles (or did I completely misunderstand that scene? I know they mention watching over the aristocrats at Versailles at one point.). They may be working class, but they are not groveling after spilt wine in the streets, they have all the wine they want.