What are the complicated feeling Jane has toward Mrs.Reed & why?

[arnab]

Hi
I am doing my GCSE Literacy essay on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I finished my essay and my teacher marked it and gave it a B grade. She said she will improve it to a A Grade if i added the complicated feeling Jane has toward Mrs.Reed and explain why she has those feeling towards her in my essay.

I have been trying figure them out for the last 3hours or so but i still haven't manage to write 2 proper paragraph yet.

So If any one can tell me what are the complicated feeling Jane has toward Mrs.Reed + why she has them, it could help me a lot.

Thanks in advance to whoever that helps me.

[Bitterfly]

Yes, their relation is more complex than it looks at first, isn't it? Mrs Reed is an incarnation of the wicked step-mother (even if she's only an aunt, there are similarities between Jane's situation and Cinderella's with the two evil step-sisters). She's the first female model in the book for Jane, but represents an anti-model. She should be a mother-substitute in the same way as Mr Reed tried to act like a father-substitute, but on the contrary she hates Jane. Maybe she hates her because Jane is an intruder in the family circle: she's a little like a cuckoo, so possibly poses a threat to the order and stability of the household (since Jane, by temperament, is a woman who threatens societal statu quo, and the family was then considered as the smallest social unit and a reflection of society in general, she could also be viewed as threatening to subvert family structures, I suppose).

I think Jane also frightens her - like when she bursts out with what she thinks about Mrs Reed, after the red room episode: she doesn't act like a good little girl would do, but more like an adult, and not really a female one. Mrs Reed would like Jane if she corresponded to traditional girl-ness (submissive, still, and pretty). Mrs Reed says something striking on her deathbed: that Jane scared her, "as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice". Several things here: maybe it's Mrs Reed's guilt that makes her turn on Jane (she knows she mistreated her, that she did not respect her husband's request); Mrs Reed animalised Jane (just as her son did) and therefore was surprised when Jane showed that she was human after all (maybe a lesson for Jane/the reader: Bertha is animalised a as well, and what if that were also a mistake?); Mrs Reed identifies Jane as a "man", so doubly unnatural (both as a adult and as a male).

Because of all this, she tries to kill Jane - symbolically - by telling her uncle that she's dead. She's one of the women who uphold patriarchal structures, to the detriment of female freedom. And she's finally punished - her son causes her ruin and possibly her death, and her daughters don't love her. No one cries after her death.

What I don't really understand is the shift in Jane's attitude to her. When she learns Mrs Reed is dying, she rushes to see her, even if she was one of the people she most hated in the world. Does this merely show that Helen's lessons of forgiveness have rubbed off on her (she forgives those who have trespassed against her - like Rochester)? Funnily enough, Jane thinks about Helen when she comes to Mrs Reed's deathbed... but Mrs Reed is the contrary of Helen, being constantly identified with ice and cold (whereas Helen, by her surname, is closer to fire). Jane seems ultimately to feel pity for Mrs Reed, which is strange as well: she feels "a grating anguish for her woes". Maybe because she is aware that Mrs Reed could not help being what she is (inexorable - ironically enough when you consider the meaning of her name); that she too was imposed upon by her husband (she was afraid that he prefered Jane to his own children); that she suffered at the hands of her son; that she is, like Jane could have been had she not been stronger, a victim of men.

[kiki1982]

I think the key to Jane's reaction when Mrs Reed wants to see her on her deathbed is Helen Bruns' words 'Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited?'. She believes faults are part of the earthly body and the soul is perfect. She urges Jane to forget the faults of others and the emotions that come with it.
Jane does that and so is capable of going to Mrs Reed without scruples.
That creed is probably also the cause of Rochester being forgiven, and being praid for after Jane runs away.

Jane is able to judge without outer appearence, unlike Mrs Reed (who judges Jane because she is passionate), Jane's cousins (who judge her because she is not of their family and poor), Mr Bocklehurst (who judges her because he took the words of Mrs Reed for true), Mr Rochester (who judges Ingram, Bertha and Richard). Rochester is the biggest evocation of this principle: after his 'change' he doesn't care for money anymore, so no outer appearence... Mrs Reed undergoes the same behind the scenes: she asks to fetch Jane Eyre, because she regrets the fact that she told her uncle that Jane had died. Thus she is able to value her as a person, but with one condition, she needs to admit to herself that she was wrong... Unfortunately, she refuses to do so and dies, whereas Rochester does admit to himself that he was wrong by risking his life to rescue Bertha.

[kiki1982]

Ok, second attempt...

So obviously the question is why Jane is still able to rush to her aunt after what her aunt did and said to her...

As I said Helen's words are very important: you need to see the person, without feelings towards him/her and through asking yourself the question why they did those wicked things to you, you get to know yourself and so you can correct the faults. By correcting the faults people see in you, you can then make them less wicked towards you. That is what Jane doesn't understand in the beginning, but she starts to realise later.
Mrs Reed is wicket to Jane, because she disapproves of her passionateness. According to Helen, the problem woud be solved if Jane showed less passion.

When Jane returns to Gateshead, she is less passionate and so the fault Mrs Reed saw in her is gone. Jane says she forgives her aunt, but that doesn't mean salvation for her aunt, because her aunt herself (!) needs to change her way of looking at her and others. In essense, one can only better himself if he looks higher than an equal. (Jane's words (not literal!) after the night where Richard Mason gets stabbed). Regeneration can't depend on another person, but depends on the will to better oneself and look for something higher than man.

Both Rochester and Mrs Reed refuse to do so. Mrs Reed refuses to kiss Jane just before she dies and still says she was at fault, when it is clear that Jane in the meantime has become more like Helen. In that, her death is a sad and useless death where no-one can shed a tear because in the end she wasn't open for regeneration to herself (where she has to admit that she was fundamentally wrong in casting Jane off and not treating her 'as her own' like her husband asked her). Rochester regrets what he has done as well, but doesn't admit, after foregiveness from Jane (here again!), that he was fundamentally wrong in locking his wife away and wanting to commit bigamy. In the end of course, for him, everything will be alright, because he gets given a second chance. Maybe we should see the words of Eliza, Jane's cousin, 'with her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble', as a guide towards the second chance of Rochester. Mrs Reed refuses to reconcile with Jane, after the death of her beloved son John. Trouble indeed has shortened her life where she could have taken a second chance. Rochester , after 'the death' of Jane, takes the second chance when he rescues Bertha from the roof. Before Jane returns he has his own fair share of trouble but is not allowed to die. He bettered himself by acknowledging that he was fundamentally wrong in his ways. Mrs Reed failed to do so and had to die because of it...

Is this a better attempt?

[arnab]

yeah, that helps me a lot. thanks mate.

[Lady Marian]

Unconditional forgiveness? Has anyone come up with that yet? I should have read all of the above posts, but I'm in a hurry...