The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte delivers a strong feminist message. Jane was a strong woman in a time when women were not meant to be strong. She was very out spoken (even as a child) and very sure in her values and opinions. She would not change them for anyone. She did not even let men control her, which is what was expected of women in this era. Jane’s father died when she was a little girl, leaving her basically on her own. The only kin she had that she knew of was an aunt that saw her as nothing but a burden and treated her cruelly.
Her three cousins were just as bad, which further distressed her situation. Jane’s only escape from living with these awful people was the solitude she found in books. Any time she had spare time she would read. It is Jane’s love for reading and the knowledge she gained from them that gives her the power to finally stand up to her aunt. Her aunt ultimately gets rid of Jane by sending her to a very strict boarding school designed for orphans called Lowood. At Lowood Jane befriends a girl by the name of Helen Burns.
When she first meets Helen, she sees her being punished in front of her entire class for virtually no reason. After witnessing this incident, Jane talks to Helen about it because she does not understand why she did not resist the teacher she says: You are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse.
When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should-so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again (p. 60). This quote shows Jane’s strength and determination, which demonstrates her tendency to stand up to those who treat her unjustly. While at Lowood the reader also starts to see one of Jane’s weaknesses – she desperately needs people to love her since she was without love for so long at Gateshead. She receives this love from Helen and the head of the school, Miss Temple.
Unfortunately Helen dies after Jane being there only a short time. Jane finishes her schooling at Lowood and begins to teach there. Eventually Miss Temple gets married and leaves. Since Miss Temple moves on, Jane has nothing left there and takes a Governess job at Thornfield that she knows nothing about. At Thornfield, the head of the house is Mr. Rochester, a Bachelor who took in a child named Adele after her mother died. It is possible that Rochester is her father. Mr. Rochester is almost twice the Jane’s age, which is only eighteen at the time.
When she first meets him, he comes off as rude and condescending. Jane exhibits, once again, her ability to stand up for herself in one of the very first conversations she has with him saying: I don’t think, sir, you have the right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the the use you have made of your time and experience (p. 137). This quotation shows that Jane does not let herself be intimidated by him even though he is male, he is much older than her, and he is her boss.
Jane and Mr. Rochester, in time, come to enjoy each other’s company and end up falling in love. Rochester eventually proposes to Jane and she accepts. After she accepts, Mr. Rochester tries to buy her many expensive clothes and jewelry, which she is not used to. She has always been a simple girl, never very attractive, and she feels uncomfortable being spoiled and puts an end to it. Most women in this period married a man of Mr. Rochester’s stature expressly for reasons pf wealth and comfort, but Jane is marrying him purely for love and wants none of that.
On the day of the wedding when Jane and Rochester are on the altar, Mr. Mason enters the church claiming that Mr. Rochester is married. He admits to this accusation and brings Jane up to the attic to show her his wife, who is insane and has been kept in the attic for years. Upon this discovery, Jane goes to her room and stays there for hours reflecting on what had happened. When she comes out, Mr. Rochester begs for her forgiveness and pleads with her to stay with him. Jane refuses him not because she no longer loves him or that she hates him for what he’s done, but it goes against the morals that she believes in and she gives him this explanation:
I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad-as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: They are for such moments as this when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?
They have a worth-so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane-quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot (p. 319). Jane does not let her feelings for Rochester clouds her judgment. She knows that staying with him though she loves him and would be supported in life is wrong in the eyes of God and would go against her beliefs.
So without any money, job, or anywhere to stay and not a friend to turn to, Jane leaves Thornfield. After leaving Thornfield, Jane ran out of money and had to wander the streets. She had to resort to knocking on doors and begging. Jane was near death when one house finally took her in. It was the house of St. John and his two sisters, Diana and Mary. Jane became very close to all of them. After living with them for quite some time, Jane found out that her uncle that she never knew left her a big inheritance.
Along with this she found out that St. John, Mary, and Diana were her cousins and she unselfishly split the inheritance with them. St. John ended up proposing to Jane and asking her to accompany him on a missionary trip to India. Jane agreed to go to India because she wanted to serve God’s will, but she wanted to go as John’s sister not as his wife. It hurt her to turn down his proposal, but she knew John did not love her nor did she love him in that way, so she refused to enter a loveless marriage. John tried to guilt her into it and almost succeeded, but Jane found strength and denied him.
She decided before she could ever leave England she must find out how Mr. Rochester has been. Jane returns to Thornfield after years of being away. She now has complete financial independence which I believe makes her more secure in returning to Thornfield because she is in need of nothing but peace of mind in knowing that Mr. Rochester is alright. When she gets to Thornfield she finds it burnt to the ground. Mr. Rochester has gone blind and is very deformed after he went into the fire to try and save his wife from the burning house.
His attempt had failed and his wife died. So in the end, Jane can now be with the person that she loves – Mr. Rochester. The irony of their marriage is that Jane will be the one taking care of Mr. Rochester instead of the other way around. Throughout the novel, Jane stands up for what she believes in even though in some cases it hurts her very badly. By her not being scared to do what it takes to follow her beliefs she went from a girl who had nothing to a woman who had it all.
