jane erye and religion

The basic idea of any novel is from the mind of the author. Without the author’s perceptions, prejudices, and preconceptions, the novel would not exist. It is developed from these thoughts and sees its creation as a result of the author exploring his or her feelings and assigning symbols to meaning in order to tell a story they believe people should want to read. Therefore context of the author’s situation is relevant to understanding why an author chooses to include, omit, distort, embellish and/or lay bare any idea presented in a novel. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a prime example of this.

At the time of its publishing, England was in one of its greatest religious debates. There was a query from the Utilitarian movement as to whether "all institutions, in the light of human reason . . . were useful [and furthermore] was religious belief useful for the needs of a reasonable person?" (Stillinger 896). Brontë feels this is an important question so she uses religion to frame her protagonist’s search for happiness, presenting the ideas in which God influences and doesn’t influence and how he is represented by assigning descriptive stereotypical names to help the reader better keep track of her characters. To emphasize this religious search, Brontë symbolizes her opinion of these issues through the names of her characters.

The first person Jane admires is Miss Temple. Her name is a word easily identifiable as a place of worship and Brontë describes her as always having “something of serenity in her air” (Brontë 61). Historically these buildings are made of stone, survived for centuries and because of this, they may have an air of serenity themselves: at the very least a calming feature. Brontë symbolizes this by having Jane become ...

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...rontë developing the idea that just being good was religious enough. Rochester is not especially religious. He has even attempted bigamy, a dreadful sin to Jane. But Brontë redeems him through his actions when he attempts to save his crazy wife. Brontë even goes so far as to have God reward Rochester by allowing him to regain his sight.

Brontë’s purposeful stereotyping of characters with names appropriate to their behavior, keeps the reader’s focus on the religion thread of the story. Every character’s juxtaposition with a name appropriate of his or her character’s religious disposition develops this idea further. Brontë’s idea of a reserve amount of religion being appropriate is the theme she wants the reader to understand and put into the context of the religious debate at the time, one can see how she has captured the essence of the religion people were debating.