Jane Eyre

“I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.” 

Jane’s friend Helen Burns illuminates her religious philosophy, which is steeped in forgiveness and focuses on Heaven as a restful “home.” Helen explains that she is unaffected by the mistreatment of cruel teachers like Miss Scatcherd and the harsh environment of Lowood because she thinks of Heaven as her true home, and she lives her life calmly “looking to the end.” While Jane admires the inner peace this philosophy allows Helen to achieve, she privately questions the ways this philosophy absolves people like Miss Scatcherd and Mr. Brocklehurst from responsibility for their actions. Jane spends the remainder of the novel searching for her own home, knowing that Helen’s faith cannot satisfy her. 

“A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye.’ Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!”

Mr. Brocklehurst harshly rebukes the kind Lowood teacher Miss Temple for serving bread and cheese to her students after their porridge was burnt and inedible. He uses the Bible to justify his deprivation of the students, positioning himself as a pious and devout man of God. Soon after this diatribe, however, Mr. Brocklehurst’s extravagantly dressed in wife and daughter enter the room. Thus, the novel continues to develop the theme of religious hypocrisy, revealing that Mr. Brocklehurst does not live up to the beliefs he espouses; instead, he embezzles donations to keep his family in luxury. 

“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.” 

On her deathbed, the kind and pure of heart Helen reveals that she is “very happy” to be dying young, believing that she is going to her true home in Heaven. Helen’s death as a tragedy capped by the indignity of being buried in an unmarked grave. However, her death also marks a positive turning point: After the typhus outbreak, Lowood is investigated, Mr. Brocklehurst is kicked out, and the school is greatly improved. Jane garners strength and conviction to live her values after Helen’s death. Jane pays tribute to Helen—and her own spiritual resurrection after the death of her friend—by later placing a stone on her grave that reads “Resurgam” (202): Latin for “I shall rise again.”

“Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you, […] you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply […]” 

When Mr. Rochester realizes that Jane means more to him than an ordinary governess, he remarks that there is something “singular” about her mode of expression and communication, which extends much deeper than physical beauty. He appreciates her boldness, her insight, and her unusually forthright manner. It is telling that Mr. Rochester’s admiration follows Jane honestly telling him that she doesn’t think he is handsome (324)—Mr. Rochester realizes that Jane would rather tell the truth than manipulate a situation in her favor.

“You […] a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!” 

Jane wrestles with the Victorian trope that beauty determines female worth. In her experience, physically attractive women such as Georgiana Reed and Blanche Ingram receive more attention, sympathy, and love. Jane has internalized this idea, harshly criticizing herself for fantasizing that Mr. Rochester might love her. She even draws two comparative “portraits”—a beautiful and refined one of Blanche and a cruelly plain, crude one of herself—as a reminder to keep her expectations low. This self-wounding internal voice plagues Jane throughout the novel until she eventually overcomes it. 

“My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now.” 

Jane wants to reconcile with the dying Mrs. Reed in spite of her aunt’s continued demonstrations of bitterness and cruelty. Jane has taken to heart some of Helen Burns’ philosophy of forgiveness; her actions are a sharp contrast to Aunt Reed’s unending vileness. Aunt Reed professes religious belief, while Jane acts with moral clarity. 

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.” 

In an attempt to spare Jane from the complications of marrying him, given his pre-existing marriage to the “mad woman” Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester proposes that Jane accept a governess position in Ireland. However, he immediately realizes that he cannot bear leaving Jane, and he proposes to her. The image of a “string” knotted to Mr. Rochester’s ribs echoes the “chain” he describes on page 674. 

“My bride is here, […] because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?” 

With this marriage proposal, Mr. Rochester announces that he loves Jane not for her beauty or feminine charm, but because he sees her as his intellectual “equal.” This statement carries tremendous resonance for Jane, who has experienced a great deal of rejection over her lifetime for being plain. Jane realizes that Mr. Rochester truly appreciates her for who she is. This idea of “equality” is powerful and unusual for the Victorian era when Jane Eyre was written: Wives were meant to be decorative possessions and not independent minds. 

“While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his affection by its expression.”

This moment poignantly illustrates the strong effect Mr. Rochester’s love has on Jane. Knowing that he appreciates her as an “equal,” she feels released from the internalized voice that makes her feel unlovable, unworthy, and unbeautiful. Jane feels she can approach him as an equal.

“When once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I’ll just—figuratively speaking—attach you to a chain like this […] Yes, bonny wee thing, I’ll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.”

Before their first wedding, Mr. Rochester becomes strangely controlling and possessive of Jane, foreshadowing the crisis at the altar and the revelation of Bertha. In his desperation to “seize” her, Mr. Rochester attempts to dress Jane in rich fabrics and jewels, to make her an object he can possess and “wear.” Jane’s resists these gestures of material ownership just as she will resist his later proposal to live as unmarried lovers. 

“My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.” 

Jane links romantic love and spirituality, suggesting that her intense love for Mr. Rochester, whom she sees as an “idol,” dangerously threatens her religious morality. This passage connects to the spiritual conflict she will experience after learning about Mr. Rochester’s prior marriage to Bertha and feeling torn between her passion for Mr. Rochester and her devotion to Christian sexual purity. 

“What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it groveled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.” 

Brontë compares Mr. Rochester’s mentally ill wife Bertha to a “wild animal,” a “beast” rather than a human being with her own desires, motivations, and feelings. This dehumanizing and diminishing description reflects Victorian colonialist attitudes toward natives of British territories such as Jamaica, Bertha’s birthplace. The prevailing attitude among Victorian imperialists was that natives were subhuman, so subjugating them was justified.

While there are many ways to interpret Bertha’s character and her identity as the “mad woman in the attic,” the novel’s stark comparison between her “wild animal” appearance and Jane’s calm demeanor is key. Bertha is a contrasting foil for Jane and also the embodiment of Jane’s dark subconscious. Bertha enacts Jane’s deepest fears: her possible future as Mr. Rochester’s captive or her transformation into a debased libertine if she agrees to live in sin with Mr. Rochester. 

“That is my wife, […] Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have […] this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize.”

Mr. Rochester compares Bertha to Jane, begging for sympathy from his wedding audience. This passage invites the reader to consider the moral complexities of Rochester’s situation—he yearns for a loving marriage, but finds himself tied to a violent and mentally ill woman with no recourse to divorce. Brontë encourages self-righteously religious readers to test their values against a thorny situation. This passage also furthers the racist, colonialist undertones of figuring Rochester’s Jamaican wife as inhuman. 

“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.”

In this pivotal passage, Mr. Rochester further affirms his deep love for Jane. He proclaims that he would love her even if she lost her reason, suggesting that their romance is above the values and norms of society. The line “you should have no watcher and no nurse but me” foreshadows Jane’s future role as Mr. Rochester’s nurse after he is blinded by the fire Bertha sets in Thornfield. 

“Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical—is false.” 

Following Mr. Rochester’s proposal that they run away, Jane reminds him—and herself—that it would be unlawful and sinful to live together “as [he] desire[s].” With this proclamation, she remains a morally bound character, in contrast to Bertha, who has no moral checks over her violent behavior. 

Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love. 

The night after her wedding is called off, Jane dreams that her mother begs her to resist Mr. Rochester’s “temptation” to flee and live together in France. Jane remembers that much of her childhood sorrow and her existence as an impoverished dependent resulted from her mother’s ill-judged pursuit of love. As Jane leaves Thornfield, she is sad to leave Mr. Rochester, but she knows that if she were to stay, she would become an “instrument of evil” to the man she “wholly love[s].” 

Whether is it better […] to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? 

Jane tells herself that even her unfulfilling work as a “village-schoolmistress” is preferable to the mental strain of sexual immorality. Jane would not have remained Mr. Rochester’s “equal” if they had moved to France together; rather, she would have felt overpowered and controlled by her passion for him. In keeping with the novel’s British colonial subtext, Jane also tellingly compares this hypothetical sinful surrender to slavery, aligning the image of a subjugated native with moral degradation. 

St. John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters.”

This failed “experiment kiss” confirms that Jane and St. John do not feel romantic desire for each other. With this realization, Jane experiences a turning point in her feelings. She understands that she cannot pursue a relationship with someone who does not feel romantic love for her, even if the relationship would technically be more moral than a union with Mr. Rochester. 

“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them. […] I will give my heart to God, […] You do not want it.” 

Jane refuses to marry St. John because they are not in love with one another. This moment again connects religion and romantic love: With her declaration, Jane simultaneously affirms her loyalty to God and her right to pursue happiness, suggesting that God would not want her to embark on a loveless marriage. By elevating her autonomy and personal pursuit of happiness, Jane makes what modern critics describe as a feminist statement.

I might have said, ‘Where is it?’ for it did not seem in the room—nor in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently. 'I am coming!’ I cried. ‘Wait for me! Oh, I will come!’ 

Jane hears Mr. Rochester calling out to her from a great distance. Knowing that it is logically impossible for her to hear Mr. Rochester’s voice, Jane interprets this call as a sign—possibly from God—that she must find him. This passage echoes Mr. Rochester’s proposal to Jane in the orchard, wherein he spoke of a spiritual “string” (627) connecting them over a vast channel of separation.

Amidst the silence of those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered—not now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.

Upon returning to Thornfield following the call of Mr. Rochester, Jane immediately knows she has made the right decision. After spending her life seeking a place to belong, she finally feels “like the messenger-pigeon flying home.” Jane realizes that her only “home” is with Mr. Rochester. 

“I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion—to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.”

In a symbolic inversion of Mr. Rochester’s earlier vow—to love and protect Jane even if she went mad—Jane promises to serve as Mr. Rochester’s “nurse.” Jane is effectively restored to equality with Mr. Rochester: He no longer overpowers and enslaves Jane with desire, but instead depends upon her to some extent. Mr. Rochester’s disability allows them to marry on equal footing. 

“You are no ruin, sir—no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.” 

Equalized with Mr. Rochester, Jane explains that his masculinity is not “ruin[ed]” by his disability. She declares that her role—as his wife and partner—is to “nurse” him back to health (and thus metaphorically “nurse” their relationship back to its former strength).