China Requires Ninth-Graders to Read “Jane Eyre”

Chinese state media announced that, beginning this fall, all ninth-grade students nationwide must read Charlotte Brontë’s novel *Jane Eyre* in its entirety. The directive appears in an official newspaper, which frames the work as an “anti-materialistic love story” suitable for young readers. The policy adds the novel to the standard curriculum for the final year of compulsory education.

New York Times

*Jane Eyre* has been part of Chinese literary life since a translation was first published in 1925, and it has been adapted repeatedly for stage and screen. A British film version screened in Chinese theatres in 1979, shortly after the Cultural Revolution, marking an early re-opening to foreign culture. The new mandate arrives as China confronts a declining birth rate; the government has recently emphasized policies that encourage marriage and child-bearing among the youth.

New York Times

According to the official newspaper, the novel’s portrayal of an independent yet socially harmonious heroine aligns with the government’s vision of gender equality that coexists with traditional family structures. The story is presented as a model of personal integrity without “outrageous” challenges to patriarchal authority, reinforcing the state’s broader social goals.

New York Times

Ping Zhu, a literature professor at the University of California, San Diego who studies Chinese feminism, notes that the novel’s themes of independence and marital partnership fit the Chinese government’s agenda of promoting women’s equality while preserving the heterosexual nuclear family. She observes that the narrative’s conclusion—Jane’s marriage to Mr. Rochester and the birth of their child—mirrors the state’s encouragement for young people to marry and have children.

New York Times

• “All these things are what the Chinese government wants the younger generation to do,” — Ms. Zhu, a literature professor at the University of California, San Diego

New York Times