Consider the selfie. By now， it’s a fairly mundane artistic tradition， even after a profusion of thinkpieces have wrestled with its rise thanks to the so-called Me Generation’s “obsession” with social media.1 Anyone in possession of a cheap camera phone or laptop can take a picture of themselves， edit it（or not）， and share it with the world in a matter of seconds.
But before the selfie came “the self，” or the fairly modern concept of the independent“individual.” The now-ubiquitous selfie expresses in miniature the seismic2 conceptual shift that came about centuries ago， spurred in part by advances in printing technology and new ways of thinking in philosophy. It’s not that the self didn’t exist in pre-modern cultures： Rather， the emphasis the Protestant Reformation3 in the 16th century placed on personal will， conscience， and understanding—rather than tradition and authority—in matters of faith spilled over the bounds of religious experience into all of life. Perhaps the first novel to best express the modern idea of the self was Jane Eyre， written in 1847 by Charlotte Bront？.4
Those who remember Jane Eyre solely as required reading in high-school English class likely recall most vividly its overthe-top Gothic tropes： a childhood banishment to a deathhaunted room， a mysterious presence in the attic， a Byronic hero，5 and a cold mansion going up in flames. It’s more seemingly the stuff of Lifetime6 television， not revolutions. But as unbelievable as many of the events of the novel are， even today， Bront？’s biggest accomplishment wasn’t in plot devices. It was the narrative voice of Jane—who so openly expressed her desire for identity， definition， meaning， and agency7—that rang powerfully true to its 19th-century audience. In fact， many early readers mistakenly believed Jane Eyre was a true account （in a clever marketing scheme， the novel was subtitled， “An Autobiography”）， perhaps a validation of her character’s authenticity.
The way that novels paid attention to the particularities of human experience （rather than the universals of the older epics and romances8） made them the ideal vehicle to shape how readers understood the modern individual. The rise of the literary form was made possible by the technology of the printing press， the print culture that followed， and the widening literacy that was cultivated for centuries until Jane Eyre’s publication. The novel seemed perfectly designed to tell Bront？’s first-person narrative of a destitute orphan girl searching for a secure identity—first among an unloving family， then an austere charity school，9 and finally with the wealthy but unattainable employer she loves. Unable to find her sense of self through others， Jane makes the surprising decision to turn inward.
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