Virginia Woolf believed that women were always in touch with anger, although they didn’t physically appear angry most of the time. According to her, the male dominated world severely oppressed women to the extent that all they experienced was perpetual anger. Worse still, the fact that women were always jealous of one another often aggravated the anger. She also maintains that women are their worst enemies, always unfriendly to one another (Bray 1990).
In the story Their Eyes Were Watching God, Phoebe, Janie’s friend turned angry when she realized that the women in the neighborhood were only gossiping about Janie. They insinuated that Janie was older than her fiancé, supposedly because they were jealous of her. Because Janie does not want to confront the women, she tells Phoebe about the reality of her marriage hoping that this would stop the women from gossiping. In the same story, women appear to be quite unfriendly to fellow women. This appears clearly when women in the neighborhood gossip about Janie rather than console her for the loss of her husband. Their lives are driven by jealousy to the extent that they no longer have feelings of sympathy (King 25).
In the story Jane Eyre, the little orphan is tormented by her fellow women who should give her emotional support. Mrs. Reeds prefers to constantly remind the young girl that she is worthless and parentless. When servants begin to use the same words to torment her, she is forced to rise up and tell them how much she hates them. This further reinstates Woolf’s idea that women are their worst enemies. Being a mother and Jane Eyre’s aunt, she is supposed to offer her moral guidance and help her overcome her loneliness. However, she does the exact opposite, tormenting the little orphan (Alan 43).
In conclusion, the two stories reveal the same traits that Woolf refers to in her story. This affirms the fact that women cannot shy away from gossip and hatred.