Pivotal Moment in Jane Eyre
According to Henri Bergson, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” Life consists of a multitude of transitions and experiences, which help shape the creation of a person’s identity. This is evident in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, when Jane undergoes a striking moment of self-realization and moral development as she leaves her life at Moor House for Thornfield. This evolution occurs as she cultivates her own religious values, determines what love is, and becomes autonomous.
Jane’s life at Moor house was the depiction of stability. During her time there she created a name for herself. First, she worked as a respectable teacher, helping develop the minds of young children. Then, she crafted friendships for the first time with
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neighbors and others. Lastly, she finally found the family she had been longing for for many years in her cousins.
While she was there, she was presented with a proposition that would fulfill her spiritual journey in life. “Jane come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer...God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife.” (Bronte, 404 & 405). St. John offered to marry Jane so that she could go with him to preach the word of God and help convert India’s inhabitants. St. John was very influential on Jane, as a result of his strong religious beliefs and compelling rhetoric. Even his cold attitude was transmitted to her. Consequently, Jane greatly contemplated the decision. Ultimately, she decided that she would be willing to go on the trip with him, but as a sister rather than a wife. She did not feel any adoration between her and St. John, only a sense of servitude. Thus, forming the ultimate bond of love would be treacherous and empty. She would not only be without independence, but also the possibility of finding love. When St. John is confronted with this idea, he harshly rejects it, insisting on the necessity of the marriage. After a week of frigidity
and stiffness, St. John decides to openly pray for Jane to make a decision in his favor. Jane is suddenly overcome with a sense of awe and almost compelled to say yes, when she is interrupted by Mr. Rochester’s voice calling for her. She is awoken from her trance and decides the next day to leave the Moor House for Thornfield, even while St. John urges her to resist the temptation. It is within in this moment that Jane changes into a women who independently formulates her own ideals and beliefs. She leaves a place of security to venture out and to follow her own desires. This story consists of Jane’s progression from youth to adulthood. It is composed of moments of hardship, grief, confusion, and happiness. All of these moments had an effect on Jane, helping her cultivate and form who she is. However, it is in the moment she leaves the Moor House, that her thoughts about religion, love, and independence come to light. First and foremost, she reveals her personal faith values when she rejects St. John. Throughout her life, Jane has been exposed to many differing viewpoints of religion. Initially, in Lowood she was taught that faith must be strict and unemotional, reinforced by suffering. While there, she also receives spiritual insight from Helen Burns, who, in a submissive way, accepts all her trials and greets her persecutors with love. Along with these two varying belief systems, Jane was also exposed to the persuasive and magnetic faith of St. John. He believed that to demonstrate faith one must be detached from emotions and feelings, prominent in his rejection of Rosamond, and they must be dutiful to God. His strong faith was very compelling and captivated Jane to follow his actions and ideals for a short time. In the moment she says no, she not only rejects him, but also rejects his religious views. She does not believe her joining an unloving marriage to a missionary is doing what God wants. She believes that religion needs to be personal and based on kindness and compassion towards others, not coldness. Her refusal shows that she finally defined her own faith, not what others attempt to persuade her to think. In addition, Jane determines what love really is composed of. “He has told me I am formed for labour-not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, If i am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage.” (Bronte, 418) Jane had the possibility to marry St. John and live a fulfilling life teaching the ways of her God. Yet, she declines this offer because she realizes that while she is infatuated by St. John, she is not in love with him. St. John and Jane are internally different people. St. John has a cold attitude, is unloving, and has a strict view of religion. On the other hand, Jane is a kind, simple women, with a large heart for others, and a natural view towards faith. While they may have a similar goal to reach heaven and to please God, they are emotionally incompatible. This differs from Jane’s relationship with Rochester as they are similar people intellectually and emotionally, both challenging to the other. Jane leaving St. John to seek Rochester resonates her final decision of what the composition of love is- internal harmony. Lastly, Jane displays her new internally-found independence. “It was my time to assume ascendancy. My powers were in play, and in force.” (Bronte, 423) Throughout the book Jane has been working towards reaching her goal of becoming self-sufficient. In denying the requests of St. John and traveling to Thornfield she is finally making decisions based on her own wants, rather than those of other people. She does not ask anyone for permission to leave, as she has had to do in the past. She is free to adventure into the world. Also, Mr. Rochester and Jane flip rolls as Rochester becomes dependent on Jane due to his crippledness and loss of vision. This contrasts with his past role as the main male figure, employer, and almost husband. Jane’s determination of her role in religion and love helped shape her into the independent thinker she grew to be. Ultimately, in a single moment, Jane not only rejected a proposal for a spiritually fulfilling trip with a pious man, left the new life she created for herself, and resurfaced her buried feelings for an ex- fiance, but she also created herself. In this pivotal moment to her advancement as a person, she displayed her principles of faith, decided what love meant to her, and became a completely self-reliant women. From a feeble existance in her youth, Jane was able to mature and grow into a strong, admirable women.
In Stephen Dunn’s 2003 poem, “Charlotte Bronte in Leeds Point”, the famous author of Jane Eyre is placed into a modern setting of New Jersey. Although Charlotte Bronte lived in the early middle 1800’s, we find her alive and well in the present day in this poem. The poem connects itself to Bronte’s most popular novel, Jane Eyre in characters analysis and setting while speaking of common themes in the novel. Dunn also uses his poem to give Bronte’s writing purpose in modern day.
There are many stages throughout the book in which the reader can feel sympathy for Jane Eyre; these include when she is locked in the Red Room, when Helen Burns dies at Lowood, and when she and Mr. Rochester are married the first time.
Analyse the methods Charlotte Brontë uses to make the reader empathise with Jane Eyre in the opening chapters. Reflect on how the novel portrays Victorian ideology and relate your analysis to the novel’s literary content.
was not a better place but it helped Jane stand on her own feet. Through
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
It is important for Charlotte Brontë to leave the reader with such a lesson because she wants to show the reader that everyone can look at Jane Eyre as a role model for being and becoming independent. With this she shows that in order to become independent you must believe in yourself and not let others bring you down and withhold you from achieving your aspiration. In letting others withhold you or keep you back from accomplishing great things you give them vast pride in being a roadblock in your life.
In life the people around Jane Eyre has a way of shaping her as a person. As a person grows older, weather very negative or positive it makes a stronger person out of a person or it affects that person in some way in life. Unfortunately and sadly for Jane she had horrible and wicked people in her life as she grew to be a young woman. Luckily for Jane, down the line of life she was able to meet those whom was respectful to her and appreciated her help and servant abilities. Multiple people had an effect on shaping Jane as a person. By the end of this essay it will be proven that the person in Jane’s life has shaped her Social drive and development as a young woman succeeding its also will be proven on the affects of Jane Eyre and bildungsroman life and early figures in feminist movement, with the affects of Jane’s life and thoughts.
Jane’s Eyre faces many problems in her short life: her father and mother died when she was young, they left her to a family who views and treats Jane as a burden, and she is a girl desiring individualism in a patriarchic society that eulogizes conformity. But in Mrs. Reed’s last action involving Jane, Mrs. Reed, unintentionally gives Jane the gift of an education—which has given Jane the confidence in her ability to perorate and adapt to many situations. Thus, Jane is now prepared to achieve whatever she wants to achieve—whether it conforms to Victorian conventions or not.
Many people believe that eating disorders are a product of the twentieth century, brought on by teenage girls aspiring to be supermodels like Cindy Crawford. Although such pressures are precipitating factors to many eating disorders, doctors diagnosed patients with anorexia as early as 1689 (Spignesi 7). One early example of anorexia is present in the novel Jane Eyre. Written in the mid-nineteenth century by Charlotte Brontë, this book describes a young girl whose personality bears striking similarities with that of a diagnosed anorexic. The life of the main character, Jane, has also been shown to share innumerable similarities with Brontë's own life. Biographical information from researchers and autobiographical information from Jane Eyre (whether intentional or not) verify that Brontë had an eating disorder.
Jane acknowledges that he does not seek marriage for love, but instead for religious purposes. Therefore, Jane proposes an alternate plan that allows her to serve as a single, independent missionary and co-worker of John. As Heidi Kelchner affirms Jane’s thoughts in her article “Jane Eyre,” “As St. John’s wife, she fears she would be restrained, and always forced to keep the fire of her nature continually low.” She would not be degraded to an object but rather wanted to stand as a strong independent woman. Jane would not accept the humiliated marriage to please St. John’s wishes.
Jane does not experience a typical family life throughout the novel. Her various living arrangements led her through different households, yet none were a representation of the norm of family life in the nineteenth century. Through research of families in the nineteenth century, it is clear that Jane’s life does not follow with the stereotypical family made up of a patriarchal father and nurturing mother, both whose primary focus was in raising their children. Jane’s life was void of this true family experience so common during the nineteenth century. Yet, Jane is surrounded by men, who in giving an accurate portrayal of fathers and masculinity in the nineteenth century, fulfill on one hand the father role that had never been present in her life, and on the other hand the husband portrait that Jane seeks out throughout the novel.
Charlotte Bronte's classic, Jane Eyre, is a "coming of age" story. The main character, Jane, travels from the innocence of childhood through the maturity of adulthood. During this journey, Jane goes through the battle of education vs. containment, where she attempts to learn about herself and about the world. She must constantly battle a containment of sorts, however, whether it be a true physical containment or a mental one. This battle of education vs. containment can be seen by following Jane through her different places of residence, including Gateshead Hall, Lowood Institution, Thornfield, Moor House and Morton, and Ferndean Manor, where she is, finally, fully educated and escapes the feeling of containment which she held throughout the novel.
The novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte consists of continuous journey through Jane’s life towards her final happiness and freedom. Jane’s physical journeys contribute significantly to plot development and to the idea that the novel is a journey through Jane’s life. Each journey causes her to experience new emotions and an eventual change of some kind. These actual journeys help Jane on her four figurative journeys, as each one allows her to reflect and grow.
Pain, misery and disappointment are all a significant part of this world’s concepts of both life and love. A prime example of this is displayed in Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, where the protagonist, Jane, suffers through a particularly difficult life; her love is constantly stripped from her the moment she is relishing it most. With Bronte’s introduction of Bertha Rochester, Jane’s never-ending cycle of disappointment and loss of love.
In the beginning of Jane Eyre, Jane struggles against Bessie, the nurse at Gateshead Hall, and says, I resisted all the way: a new thing for me…"(Chapter 2). This sentence foreshadows what will be an important theme of the rest of the book, that of female independence or rebelliousness. Jane is here resisting her unfair punishment, but throughout the novel she expresses her opinions on the state of women. Tied to this theme is another of class and the resistance of the terms of one's class. Spiritual and supernatural themes can also be traced throughout the novel.