China mandates Brontë's Jane Eyre for ninth graders, aiming to promote domesticity amidst plummeting birth rates. Beijing re-interprets Eyre as independent yet ultimately domestic, a model for young women balancing self-will with traditional values. However, the author argues Brontë’s narrative emphasizes Eyre’s profound choice and self-respect. Jane only returns to Rochester with her own inheritance, ensuring equality, not surrender. The novel teaches love as an active choice, not a passive acceptance, offering a powerful lesson of agency that contrasts with the state's likely propagandistic intent for home and hearth.