Jane Eyre and her independence from men

[jrose90]

Hey everyone, i am doing a paper on Jane Eyre and how she signifies the strength of a self reliable and independent woman, which disproves the common misconception that women must rely on men. I need help on specific text examples in the book on proving this though. Any help?

[sciencefan]

Hey everyone, i am doing a paper on Jane Eyre and how she signifies the strength of a self reliable and independent woman, which disproves the common misconception that women must rely on men. I need help on specific text examples in the book on proving this though. Any help?You can access the complete searchable text right here on this web site.
http://www.online-literature.com/brontec/janeeyre/

I haven't read the book recently, so I can't help you, but I would think it would be very hard to help with giving you answers which is like doing your work for you.

[sachi]

Even though she does fall in love with Rochester, there was a time when they were just about to get married, but his secret of having a legal wife surfaces. A scene follows where she decides to leave him, even though she had no family, plans, nor connections, because she felt that she has only herself to depend on. This is somewhere in the middle-end part of the novel.

[Dark Muse]

She is also indepedent becasue she does not look to just marry a man to fincially support her, she goes out and finds a job to make her own money and provide for herself. She has no one else to rely upon so she rely's on herself and joins the working world.

[Newcomer]

She is also indepedent becasue she does not look to just marry a man to fincially support her, she goes out and finds a job to make her own money and provide for herself. She has no one else to rely upon so she rely's on herself and joins the working world.

“She has no one else to rely upon so she rely's on herself and joins the working world.” ??? Have you read the book?

It's St. John Rivers that finds, creates, the job of a school mistress at Morton. Chapter 30, St. John speaks, “I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress's house. Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in the parish...” And a job that she soon quits upon the inheritance of 20,000 pounds. Hardly the, “and joins the working world.” Hardly the, “she goes out and finds a job to make her own money and provide for herself.”. A typical misreading of an ideologue.

It's not about independence from men as Dark Muse suggests - “My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing – I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.” That is closer to what Jane Eyre is about but not yet the apex.

[Niamh]

I think dark muses observation is to do with her initial advertising to get away from Lowood school Newcomer. I do also have to agree with her in a way. Jane does show a strength of independence and is a character that is very dependant on herself.
As for Mr Rivers, She also shows an independance from him by say that if she does go abroad with him it would be her descission and not his.

[Dark Muse]

Thank you Niamh that is what I was trying to say, sorry if I did not do it very well, and more to the point, I was trying to empahsis the fact that she was earning her own living, while at that time many women just tried to find men to marry that would support them. She became a part of the working force to try and support herself. As well her love and feelings for Rochester were not just about his wealth and her wanting someone to support her.

[Newcomer]

I think dark muses observation is to do with her initial advertising to get away from Lowood school Newcomer.

Your observation, interpretation, has merit, but when taken in the context of the original tread - Jane Eyre and her independence from men – I doubt that was what the ' Fallen Dreamer', was aiming for.
Chronologically the Morton episode is clearer of Jane's state of mind.
I'll not argue against your, “ I do also have to agree with her in a way. Jane does show a strength of independence and is a character that is very dependant on herself.”, as Charlotte created a character that grows, changes and reaches an independence. But primarily it is an independence from societal strictures and the growth is in her understanding of love.

Thank you for your thoughts. Enjoyed reading them.

[iorix]

i dont think feminists and lesbians are going to find an icon in jane eyre. my impression is that she is a thoroughly christian woman who sees through rochester's rough exterior to his fundamental decency. i dont think she is rebelling against "the patriarchy" but is establishing herself as a strong, long suffering christian woman who seeks to redeem rochester from the corruption of this world and from his tainted soul - she wishes to be a purifying influence on the man. it is not about women's liberation but about christian ideals of tolerance, love, helping your fellow, cleaving to God, perseverance and trusting in God.

Jane Eyre is above the issues of modern day feminism. She looks up to God and not down into the muck and mayhem of conflict and opposition. I think Jane Eyre is promoted as the ideal christian woman - a woman of dignity, spiritual resolve and wisdom.

Today's feminist movement has nothing to do with the ideals of Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre would be horrified by the deeds and valueless immorality of most women today. imho

[sciencefan]

i dont think feminists and lesbians are going to find an icon in jane eyre. my impression is that she is a thoroughly christian woman who sees through rochester's rough exterior to his fundamental decency. i dont think she is rebelling against "the patriarchy" but is establishing herself as a strong, long suffering christian woman who seeks to redeem rochester from the corruption of this world and from his tainted soul - she wishes to be a purifying influence on the man. it is not about women's liberation but about christian ideals of tolerance, love, helping your fellow, cleaving to God, perseverance and trusting in God.

Jane Eyre is above the issues of modern day feminism. She looks up to God and not down into the muck and mayhem of conflict and opposition. I think Jane Eyre is promoted as the ideal christian woman - a woman of dignity, spiritual resolve and wisdom.

Today's feminist movement has nothing to do with the ideals of Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre would be horrified by the deeds and valueless immorality of most women today. imhoI agree with you.
Good luck convincing the readers of Wide Sargasso Sea and thousands of brainwashed college and university students.

[annakarina]

@ iorix: off topic here, but "feminists and lesbians"?! Where the heck did anyone mention lesbians?! Oh, yeah, sorry, both terms imply shaven-headed hairy-legged women in dungarees who hate men and who seek "conflict and opposition" at all costs. God forbid we forget our stereotypes!

"Jane Eyre would be horrified by the deeds and valueless immorality of most women today" and so would any visitor dropping in from the XIXth century for that matter... society evolves.

I was impressed by JE's force of character throughout the book, whether it's in the way she stands up to her aunt as a child, or to Rochester later on in the narrative. She walks out on him not only because he already has a wife, but also because he lied to her... conceiving honesty as the duty of a husband towards his wife showed a conception of marriage that was well ahead of her time.

[iorix]

society also degenerates. what is happening in society is not progress. movies like brokeback mountain and hostel are testimony to this fact. there is no doubt that homosexuality is promoted in society these days. marriage is strongly discouraged, men are portrayed as incompetent fools. human degredation and sexual defilement and obscenity are not signs of human progress.

im not sure by what you meant when you said "society evolves", usualy people take that to mean "progress"

Jane Eyre is a "christ figure" who suffers this life with faith and tust in God seeking the well being of her fellow. She is a woman of great virtue and personal insight - a self reproaching soul, humble, meek, modest, longsuffering, strong in faith and wise.

the movie and tv presentations of this character are a corruption. why do they call these shows "Jane Eyre" when they corrupt her character and alter the story.

[Newcomer]

Jane Eyre is a "christ figure"

First let's remember that Jane Eyre is fiction.
A good starting point is the dictionary definition :a: something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically: an invented story b: fictitious literature (as novels or short stories); an assumption of a possibility as a fact irrespective of the question of its truth.

Hence Jane Eyre is neither a scientific hypothesis, to be proved or disproved, nor a philosophical or social thesis on morality. It is literature and in my opinion pretty good literature, but at it's lowest common denominator, entertainment. If we forget this and putting on ideological glasses read it to support our pre/mis/conceptions, then we shall miss the poetry of the prose and the emotional transference that Charlotte miraculously achieved with this miss.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is not just about young lovers nor is Jane Eyre a prototype Feminist, nor as ridiculous as it is to mention, a “Christ figure”.

Present day Feminism has many forms:Liberal feminism, Radical feminism, Black feminism, Socialist and Marxist feminism, Post-structural and postmodern feminism, Ecofeminism. Therefore unless you specify with academic jargon, what you mean, you can mean almost anything. Though Wikipedia defines feminism consisting of three waves: the first wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. This confuses issues of social reform with feminism as an ideology. A logical start is with Simone de Beauvoir signing the Feminist Manifesto and the publication of Le Deuxième Sexe in 1949. Though all ideologies try to create proto-heroes/heroines, the insistence that Sappho or Jane Eyre are proto-feminists, is just fiction and nothing more.

Whether you agree or disagree with Feminism, it does have some intellectual rigor. At least as compared to fanatics such as 'iorix', 'kiki1982' interpretations of Jane Eyre as a “Christ figure”. The best argument is both historic and contemporary and summed up by Sandra Gibert and Susan Gubar's - “It seems not to have been primarily the coarseness and sexuality of Jane Eyre which shocked the Victorian reviewers .. but ... its anti-Christian refusal to accept the forms, customs and standards of society – in short, its rebellious feminism. They were disturbed not so much by the proud Byronic sexual energy of Rochester, as by the Byronic pride and passion of Jane herself.”

[iorix]

now i am a fanatic? :lol: typical. smear campaign is it? :thumbs_up

Jane suffers deprivation because she refuses to submit to materialistic and sensualist temptation. She will not become rochesters mistress, she will not be seduced by the prospect of living in sunny Marseilles. Rather she suffers starvation and near death until she is rescued by a charitable and good christian group of people. She is a principled and determined christian woman!

The prospect of marriage is fixed for her. There is no alternative for her. In life women get married or become spinsters. This the reality Jane lives in and submits to. A right, good, moral, decent and desirable reality.

Never are men presented as inferior to women in this book. Bertha is a corpulent, hysterical madwoman, and this is Jane's opinion of her. The pharmacists who attends to Jane is a good man. There is no sexism here.

After Jane is rescued by the people at Marsh End she thanks God as she is received by a warm bed.

Says Rochester;

"'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the air--those are
the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself
from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me
with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's
burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse
than this present one--let me break away, and go home to God!'

Who does he seek to deliver him from this state. It is Jane! And she says that she loves him and will marry him and wishes to complete him in the state of HOLY MATRIMONY sanctified by GOD!

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH A MAN AND A WOMAN DEPENDING ON EACHOTHER!!!!!! WHO PUT IT INTO PEOPLE'S HEADS THAT THIS IS WRONG.

AND JESUS IS NOT A BAD ROLE MODEL!

in the blood of eden lie the woman and the man.

How is Jane proud? She says she has no ambition, she says in the true christian manner that poverty is not a crime. She is content with the little she has when she is given the post as teacher by St John. She struggles against her resentment of thinking she deserves better and calls herself an idiot for not being satisfied with what she has. She says she conquers those impulses.

I think the book has been edited poorly.

[Logos]

....I think the book has been edited poorly. I don't understand this comment, could you elaborate? do you mean the online e-text? or the author as editor? and, just saying ... you don't have to use all CAPS you know, it is considered SHOUTING :)

[iorix]

i once wrote a "letter to the editor" and they completely twisted my words to say the REVERSE of what i meant. but they still put my name under it whenthey published it in the newspaper!

the tv presentations of Jane Eyre corrupt the story into being some sort of pagan, wiccan story about todays sexist "women's spirituality".

some of the pagan elements in the book appear to me to be out of place and i think the original text has been tampered with.

maybe im wrong but i consider it more likely true than not.

why would Jane think about suckling "mother natures breast" when she is faced with her privations. She almost dies of starvation! (not shouting) Jane was raised in a christian boarding house, where would she learn about paganism. The pagan elements are in too glaring a conflict with the absolutely christian principles of the book.

im no scholar, these are just my feelings about it.

i just really admire the christian Jane Eyre and am disgusted and vexed with paganism in feminism

[annakarina]

I haven't seen any of the TV adaptations, so I can't really comment.
However, we're talking about the book here. You seem to be jumping ahead of us and finding meanings in what we're saying that aren't really there. We're asking ourselves what made Jane Eyre an independant woman who was ahead of her time, that's all, and being an independant, strong woman is perfectly compatible with being God-fearing.
You seem to have a real bee in your bonnet when it comes to feminism. I advise you go to the library and get out some of the fundamental feminist texts - Greer, Friedan and De Beauvoir should do for a start. You keep ranting on and getting hysterical about something you obviously know nothing about.

[bethps]

But if so, why did Jane go back to Rochester? When she went looking for him, she didn't know he was a widower. The only circunstance that had changed was that she was now a independent woman thanks to her inheritance. She was free to love him without depending on him.

[sweetsunray]

But if so, why did Jane go back to Rochester? When she went looking for him, she didn't know he was a widower. The only circunstance that had changed was that she was now a independent woman thanks to her inheritance. She was free to love him without depending on him.

That's a good question, I've been wondering about myself. She says to her cousins when she leaves for Thornfield again, beckoned by Rochester's call, that she only wants to make sure her friends are well. And yet, it's hearing his voice say her name over and over that is what prompts her to go. She does not know that Bertha is dead. What if Bertha had survived the fire? Would she have gone with StJohn? I doubt it very much. Would she have but nursed Edward for years or would she have become his mistress after all? I think it very likely the latter would have occurred if she had found Rochester in the state she found him, but his wife still living.

As for the Christian part -

I accept Jane believes in a Christian God. But the child part of the novel indicates that Jane acts purely on her own conscious, inependent of religion, as some seem to think. cfr how she needs to remain to stay in good health and not die.
Most if not all of her expressions regarding accepting life's toils, where to look for guidance in making the correct choices in life could be rewritten without having any Christian or even faith connotation, while not even losing the meaning of how to be a good person making the right choices about what life throws at you. Her vouched for self-respect, self-honesty and integrity is to me her moral guide, and personally I think people can have both and use both whichever belief or non belief they have. IMO, Jane could have been as much of Islam faith, or Buddhist or atheist and make the same choices and come to the same conclusion and resolution. She would have just said the same things in different ways. However that said, Jane is indeed a Christian, but one who makes up her own mind.

[kiki1982]

I don't think Jane would have ended up becoming his mistress. That was against her principles of morality... But other than that, she indeed did not know whether Bertha had died. But does that matter, though? The point is that Rochster has become a better person than he was before. When that happens and he recognises his faults of the past (whether that is connected with religon or not does not really matter), then he is allowed to reunite with his Jane. It is then that she hears his voice. Maybe also when she has finally realised what she wants and what she believes in herself. The death of Bertha is inherent to the story as Jane and Rochester reunite, as Rochester because of that fire that Bertha caused repents, as Bertha is helping hand towards Jane in a certain sense (Bluebeard). She could not not have died.

[sweetsunray]

I don't think Jane would have ended up becoming his mistress. That was against her principles of morality...

I used to think so too... but I am not so sure anymore. At least I doubt she would have been able to leave him a second time at least. She has also recognized she was made to love, has seen how StJohn denies to himself his love for Miss Oliver, etc...


The point is that Rochster has become a better person than he was before. When that happens and he recognises his faults of the past (whether that is connected with religon or not does not really matter), then he is allowed to reunite with his Jane. It is then that she hears his voice.
...
The death of Bertha is inherent to the story as Jane and Rochester reunite, as Rochester because of that fire that Bertha caused repents, as Bertha is helping hand towards Jane in a certain sense (Bluebeard). She could not not have died.


Yes, that is what enables it, his repentence. And without Bertha's death it is doubtful he would have been able to reach that insight. It is not just his loss of the hand and sight, I think, but witnessing Bertha plunge to her death that pushes him to reach insight what a mess he made it all.

Bertha has been dead for almost a year by then, and had it simply been the removal of obstacle, Jane would have already been free to return and "hear" him in his misery on previous occasions.

It is his repentence and her insight she's made for love and not labour that coincides and opens the heart of the both of them.

[kiki1982]

I used to think so too... but I am not so sure anymore. At least I doubt she would have been able to leave him a second time at least. She has also recognized she was made to love, has seen how StJohn denies to himself his love for Miss Oliver, etc...

Let's think... If he had still been in Thornfield, their two souls would not have reunited. So she could not have found him back in there, in the same situation she left him.

If, on the other hand, his house had burnt down, and Bertha had still been alive and he had also ended up blind and crippled and repentant, then she would have stayed. But I don't think she would have become his mistress.

In the light of what I wrote to Peripatetics about love 'eros' (ερος) (post Charlotte in Love?), she and he were able to love each other in the Platonic way, without actually resulting in any improper conduct (sensuality). He was not able to do that before, nor was she I think. At the end, both do not really need sensuality anymore to be happy. His senses are not really excited, or they are at least limited in their excitement. Unlike with Céline. (no smoking, no wine...). When Jane falls in love with Rochester, she experiences for the first time sensual feelings. But she mentions that those feelings stand between her and any image of God, that she made him an idol.

If you pair that up with ερος, it means that both were not able to see true Beauty. Afterwards, they both are able to see that. He has started praying and she has returned to what she did before. That is why he can love her without seeing her. And why she can love him despite him being not an 'able' man, as they would have seen it then.

Ok, sorry. I made an essay about this, so I'm a little into philosophy now...

[sweetsunray]

Senses are not just what the eye beholds, but also touch, hearing, taste and smell... and sensual excitement would shift more to those. Especially the touch would highten eroticism between them.

How touch is instantly more important is shown by Rochester immediately grappling her when he learns she's returned. He has her on his knee, she combes him, kisses his face all over, etc. When it comes to touch, they both hardly have any reserve anymore, and that even before he pops the question again. Missing each other for so long, finally reunited, obliged to rely more on touch for the senses and the freedom to be happy, not showing much physical restraint and being cuddly all the time...Rochester not wanting to wait longer than 3 days before being wed... I imagine their wedding night to have been very sensual indeed. And this physical closeness at least lasts for 2 years, as Jane remarks on how she supposes they are so closely united because the first two years she had to be his eyes.

[kiki1982]

Yes, I agree. Senses are more than that.

I think what I meant to say was that he used to get excited by outside beauty alone. This, being blind, is no longer possible... That does not mean, naturally, that a blind man cannot feel sensual love. Only for Rochester, it was different to his former, more material kind of love: he sees a beatuiful woman, and bang, he is in love and almost ruins himself by buying her presents. He will no longer do that. He will now love her moe deeply than before. And that is eros.

Surely, their wedding nght must have been fireworks. :D

[sweetsunray]

True. BUt then outside beauty had already ceased to be of consequence to him after Céline and the other, long before he was blind already. Blanche Ingram is a very "beautiful" woman (and dark... his type) and yet he can see right through the superficial layer. And he instead fell in love with Jane, who is not "beautiful", and yet beautiful to him for her inner beauty.

I'm sure it was fireworks :D

[mona amon]

They do scorch the pages, don't they? :D


Let's think... If he had still been in Thornfield, their two souls would not have reunited. So she could not have found him back in there, in the same situation she left him. ~ Kiki

I think this is true. But Jane, when she starts off to find him, does not know this. So although external forces seem to be at work, answering Rochester's prayers and her own, enabling their reunion, the question remains. What would Jane have done if the circumstances were different?

When she hears the disembodied voice, all she knows is that Rochester is calling out to her in pain and woe. So what was her internal state? Was she willing to become his mistress now? She herself does not seem to know the answer. "Will I be so crazy as to run to him?" (paraphrasing!)

[kiki1982]

Beauty had not lost it charm for him after Céline or his other mistresses. He wanted the world to acknowledge Jne as a beauty too and wants her in a beautiful wedding dress. The reference to The Merchant of Venice is of great value in that discussion.

Beauty/outside appearance in this are on one line. He dos not want to be seen marrying a poor woman. Later, he does not care anymore. Just because he has changed through reflection, the fire and his blindness.

'The forse' that united them in soul in the end would not have united them if that had not been allowed. What happens at the end is not natural, so in my opinion, we cannot judge it according to normal situations. Wh has ever heard a voice in the air.

Thinking about Jane herself and her principles though. Why would she run away the first time in order to save herself, and then, a second time, decide to do it anyway. To me, Jane seems like a very high-principled girl who does think about her lot. In my opinion, se would never have yielded.

[sweetsunray]

He mentions how he wants society to recognize her beauty as well, yes. And no, he does not want to be seen married to a poor woman. That does not necessarily mean it is of consequence to him personally, but rather it is still of importance in his mind to society he means to introducer her. Rochester is a man who likes and intends to mingle in society with his bride. He knows society's prejudice, and they would not regard her as his equal if she's dressed as a poor governess. One just needs to read the utterances of company such as the Ingrams to know how they look down upon Jane even as a human being.

After Jane runs away though and Rochester cannot find her, he becomes a recluse who shuns society. Primarly out of grief and broken heart. But he would also have feared the contempt of society who would have known of the scandal. While his own people living in his towns and lands may sympathize with Rochester, such as the inn keeper who relates the burning of Thornfield to Jane, surely the gentry would mock him in a way he abhors: for having a mad wife, for having intended to marry while still married (for Blanche Ingram such a scandal must have been sweet revenge), for being besotted with the most despised creatures of all, a governess. Hence he sends Ms Fairfax away and pays an annuity to her and breaks all contact with the gentry. Then after the fire, he's crippled and blind on top of it, and he retires in the even more secluded Ferndean. Even if he finds happiness again in marrying Jane, he has no intention to delve into society again, other than being a master to the people who are dependent of him. Hence, the reason why jewelry and dresses aren't worth a fillip anymore.

[kiki1982]

So, if he did not care about society in the first place, why did he want to introduce her to it? Why did he turn himself away from society, as you say, out of shame, if he did not care about his appearance to that same society?

The truth of the matter is, that he wants to make out that he does not care, but that deep inside himself, he does care. He himself does not want to care for the opinions of people like the Ingrams because they are superficial, but he is not strong enough to untie himself from that (the moon-motif). That is what he managed to do finally when he became blind (a common Shakespearean motif). He wants to make himself a strong outside (the India rubber-ball), but does not totally succeed in doing so and regularly has trouble with himself trying to put the façade up again. In the end, the whole thing comes crashing down and he will become blind, because he has been blind to all the meaningful things in life. In buying his bride an elaborate veil and wedding dress he wanted her to be more than she was. Not for society alone, as there are no goomsmen and no family members, but only for himself. He buys her a trousseau, which needs to display his wealth, or the wealth of his bride on the honeymoon. It is the same as he did with Céline.

If he had not cared at all for his reputation, as anyone is prepared to believe, why did he conceal Bertha? It is just because he does not want to be the laughing stock of society that he wants her out of his life, with all horrible circumstances after that as a consequence. Had he not cared, he had never wanted to conceal his marriage from Mason and got married at a strange hour of the day (8 o'clock in the morning) in order to try avoiding the impediment. By the time people thought he was going to get married, Jane and he would already have been on the road for about 3 hours...

[sweetsunray]

So, if he did not care about society in the first place, why did he want to introduce her to it? Why did he turn himself away from society, as you say, out of shame, if he did not care about his appearance to that same society?

He does care about society appearance, until Jane runs off and the scandal is known to the world... that is exactly mu point. I never said he did not care about society. He expresses how he cared about not being scorned by society for being married to a mad wife, and he had the experience to justify it. If he did not care about society he would not have traveled so much, nor would he have been able to be play the charming host to his guests. That is my poinrt, that he cares about his reputation.



The truth of the matter is, that he wants to make out that he does not care, but that deep inside himself, he does care.

yes, that was my point... but it is also my point that for himself he does not care about outer beauty, and yet he still cares to lessen society's scorn. I see that as a normal evolution of the invidiual's progress within society, if they are not inclined to be a radical. Not something to scorn him for. Rochester clearly is not an anarchist nor a radical. For my part, radicals who reject society instanly just for the sake of their changes in taste are even more foolish.

He starts in his young life doing exactly what society, family and ties bid him to do: travel half the world to marry the woman selected for him for her money, thinking himself personally lucky at least he's in love with her (at first). He conforms.

But the conformity ends up being disastrous to his individual tastes and needs, and without being guilty for it, he even ends up being scorned by society because of the association. So, for the first time he meets with a serious conflict between his individual versus society. His struggles start to find a balance, once the individual needs reign alone towards the end, yet tempered with meeting the needs of those whom he loves.

Unlike Jane he was not seasoned from early childhood for society's scorn. While for Jane it makes an unhappy childhood, along with her natural conviction of what is just, by the time she is barely an adult the 18 year experience of it enabled her to balance individual versus society very well. Rochester goes through society versus individual conflict for almost the same 16 years. The difference is the conflict arose in a much later age of his life, at an age where conforming to society as a whole has a bigger psychological impact. What is a stranger's scorn for a child of 5 years old? It means nothing. A child's society is that of its chore family: guardians and siblings. Then later, "society" grows in size with school peers and teachers. And only from adolescence do total strangers come into account.

If the individual already met and conquered scorn of childhood society, then it is hardened not to give a fillip about larger society when it reaches adulthood. However, if the child grows into an adult who never met resistance from society, and then plummets into rejection then reputation becomes indeed an Achilles' heel.

That he travels so much and seeks such varying company, that he is quite charming lead in company of many, his long conversations with Jane, are elements that show he's an extravert... that he is a personality who needs diverse society and mingle in the crowd to be happy. He obviously thirsts for it after his 4 year nightmare with Bertha. So, not only does he experience society's rejection much later in life, he also has a high need of society, and thus its acceptance.

While he recognizes he was foolish to enter in a marriage and consider himself in love on outer beauty alone and such a little acquainance is a first step. However, he can attribute it as only 1 bad experience, that is little connected to himself, for he has Bertha's madness and unchaste conduct to lay most of the blame. Only his later experiences with Céline and others teach him, as you argue with the merchant anology, that his own selection process, outer beauty, is marred. This conflict has already played out in the past, and won partly by the individual.

By the time he meet Jane, he's already open to appreciate beauty within. He's attracted to Jane from their first meeting onward. He could not be attracted to her in this way, if he had not already internalized the lesson just for himself that outer beauty means nothing to him really. But the conflict between society and individual is not yet resolved within him. While the Ingram scheme serves in his mind mostly to rouse jeaolousy and emotion from Jane, it would have also served as a reminder to compare and convince him of Jane's inner beauty surpassing Blanche's outer beauty.

But, yes, he still feels he needs to conform to society, even if society are strangers who don't know him or Jane on their wedding tour. And while the marriage ceremony itself may be private, he shows every intention of mingling in society (albeit abroad) with Jane.

The last part of the conflict between society and the individual within him only gets resolved after Bertha's existence becomes known and Jane runs off. When his heart his broken, he realizes what matters the most: he only longs for Jane's society and no other. Only then is he ready to meet his last challenge: conquering his self-contempt.

[kiki1982]

That was just my point. His conflict is not resolved at the moment he falls in love with Jane. He wants it so badly to be resolved for himself, and might just consider it resolved for himself, but when everything comes crashing down after the cancelled wedding, suddenly realises that that is not the case, to his own detriment.

The Merchant-analogy with the leaden casket does not apply to Jane. At the moment he has chosen the leaden casket, he wants it to be a golden and silver one. 'Give and hazard all he hath' turns into 'what many men desire' (or at least what he desires) and 'what he deserves.' We could argue that he does 'give and hazard all he hath,' but he does not only that, unlike Bassanio in the play. It is only at the end that he does/has done that, having lost a lot of money and handing himself over to Jane to be led.

Of course, when he finally meets Jane, he has started to appreciate beauty within, and not only the outside. Otherwise he would not have fallen in love with Jane, plain as she is. But... There is still that major force: his reputation. And he struggles to keep that front up. Because he cannot bear the scorn of people like you say. He cannot bear it for himself. And so he cannot bear the scorn that would happen to Jane for her being an ex-governess. Not for her, but for himself. She cannot care less about it (symbolised in the discussion about the veil). But he does and so foces a trousseau, veil and wedding dress of elaborate taste upon her so that he will not be seen with an inferior bride.

It is only after the release of the fire that he can withdraw from all the scorn and tackle his self-contempt as you say. It is only then that he can be the man he really is: tender, caring, not at all loud; and start on a new society with Jane's two cousins. Ironically actually a society that is beneath him in status. In a certain sense, he starts his life again.

[sweetsunray]

then we agree :) A book would be shortened immensely if characters have already learned all from their mistakes at the start or halfthrough the story

[mona amon]

To me, Jane seems like a very high-principled girl who does think about her lot. In my opinion, se would never have yielded. ~ Kiki

To contemporary readers Jane's decicion not to became Rochester's mistress would have seemed the only moral choice. And it's quite possible that Charlotte Bronte intended it that way. But for the modern reader, conventional morality is hardly enough justification for inflicting so much pain on another person and oneself. It doesn't seem quite so high-principled to most of us to "drive a fellow creature to despair, rather than transgress a mere human law, no one being injured by the breach". Unless other interprettations are possible, the book would be dated, would lack universality, would simply not appeal to modern readers as much as it in fact does.

So what is the answer to Rochester's anguished question, "You don't love me then? It was only my station and the rank of my wife that you valued? Now that you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I were some toad or ape." ?

I find it impossible to believe that Rochester would have left her. His promise to stay only with her for the rest of his life seems genuine. Nor do I feel that he would have become disgusted with her, or ashamed, as he became with his other mistresses. Jane is different from these other girls. That's the reason why he fell so madly in love with her in the first place.

Between themselves, I'm convinced that they would have no problem living with each other, married or unmarried. It's other people that are the problem. When Jane tells Rochester to make his intentions known to Mrs Fairfax because she had seen them kissing in the hall the previous night, he is amused, and asks her whether she (Mrs Fairfax) thought Jane had "given the world for love and considered it well lost". And it is precisely this that Jane cannot do. She wants Rochester, but she wants the world as well.

Rochester's plan for them is to retire to a white-washed villa on the shores of the Mediteranean, where Jane would live a "happy, guarded, most peaceful life". Almost forty, and having lived it up, Rochester is quite ready to retire from the world and live in seclusion with Jane and only Jane. But Jane, the neophyte, can hardly be expected to be happy with such an arrangement. She's a social being. She needs other people besides Rochester. Adele really nails it when she tells Rochester that Mademoiselle would get tired of living with only him on the moon. "If I were her I would never consent to go with you." Mademoiselle of course does not consent, and probably for that very reason.

So Jane flees. Not because she blindly accepts the dictates of conventional morality, but because, as she tells us, "I care for myself". She is simply not prepared to live with Rochester on the terms that he offers, secrecy and seclusion.

(Quotations are from memory)

[Peripatetics]

mona amon - “To contemporary readers Jane's decicion not to became Rochester's mistress would have seemed the only moral choice. And it's quite possible that Charlotte Bronte intended it that way.”
The argument is not simple. If by contemporary we mean Victorian, then it's probable except that Charlotte is not simple. If we suppose that Jane's decision reflects Charlotte's morality, we have the contradiction of Charlotte's love of Hager, a married man. Of not condemning Branwell in the affair with Mrs. Robinson. It would appear that for Charlotte emotional imperatives triumph over public morality.

However making moral judgments is problematic since it is almost impossible to separate civil morality from religious morality. Are we talking about Charlotte reflecting Victorian codes, if so of what class since they were not universal, or are we unconsciously reflecting our own prejudices? A present example is - “To me, Jane seems like a very high-principled girl who does think about her lot. In my opinion, se would never have yielded. ~ Kiki”, in my opinion a doctrinaire Christian view, placing ideology over love.
The argument is not simple because Jane's decision exist only within the confines Charlotte's artistic imagination, ie fiction. That it is realistic, is a reflection of her genius, not an example of preaching of contemporary morality.

Proof is the theme: Jane the neophyte (thank you Amon), “So Jane flees. Not because she blindly accepts the dictates of conventional morality, but because, as she tells us, "I care for myself". “ and Jane understanding the power of love, returns to Rochester. Not to the white-washed villa but to the gloomy Ferdinan, not to the heroic, but the maimed Rochester. Not to the reformed Rochester but to “ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh”

[kiki1982]

@Mona Amon:

I don't think either that Rochester would have left her, certainly not. But Jane believes so. In the end, after the wedding has crashed down around her, she does not trust him anymore. he could have promised anything at that moment, she would not have believed him.

What you say about wanting the world and Rochester together:

That could be true. But if she were to become Rochester's mistress, she'd give up the world. And why? Because no-one would want to know her.

That status of fallen woman is already clear when she flees Thornfield and lands on the moors. They turn her out everywhere. And why? In Victorian society it would have been your fault that you were destitute (workhouses). Surely she, nicely dressed (in comparison with others), would have done something severely wrong.

It is a nice thought, though, and it lifts that passage from a too Victorian view.

@Peripatetics:

I ask you again, not to confuse Victorian views with Christian. This is a free forum and I can write on the religious forum when I like not to be slagged off on other forums for it. Besides, I do not have any problem with people who cheat on their partners. It is a free society, they should not be chastised for it. If they are not satisfied, they should take ther own responsibility.


However, the principles that Jane follows are much more embedded in Victorian and early 19th century society than in Christian views anyway. Queen Victoria brought on one of the worst periods of restraint in history. The 18th century had been too decadent with its syphilis and other diseases from sexual contact so that it was necessary to contain people. Although the restraint of the Regency was still considerable, a virgin queen who loved her husband dearly, never looked at another man and after his death did not remarry (although did fall in love with other men like Brown and her Indian servant), was an ideal role model to do away with any form of decadency. Certainly for the middle classes. Charlotte was definitely middle class and the cult around Victoria cannot have escaped her.

What she wrote to Héger is true, yes. But the question is if she had gone so far as to become his mistress if he had wanted her to... I think she, like her Jane, had too much ambition to render herself the subordinate of a man, certainly in such a position that is essentially very vulnerable. Unlike Céline Varens in her book, Charlotte herself did not have a job that afforded her good society and the possibility to live/suvive between lovers and to make a profit (being paid off). Despite Victorian morals and the middle class woman who was supposed to be this asexual wrapped up to the neck puppet, Charlotte was ambitious, passionate and intelligent. I cannot think she would have started on a secret relationship. It would have been throwing all her ambitions out of the window. She was in love yes. But being in love creates all kinds of dreams (as in Rochester), does it mean that they will come true (I speak from experience)?

So, these morals come from a much deeper level than Christianity or anything else like that. They come from fear, primarily in the middle classes, of moral deprivation as they saw it in poor people. If one is raised with those morals, it is hard to get rid of them.

[Peripatetics]

QUOTE=, “So Jane flees. Not because she blindly accepts the dictates of conventional morality, but because, as she tells us, "I care for myself".

I was sorely disappointed when a computer search could not find “I care for myself” in the text. The phrase concisely encompassed Jane Eyre. Not only in the hour of the aborted wedding but in totality: the young Jane - “"Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?", to the Jane who said: “I married him.”

The phrase had a ring of truth to it and a manual search found - Chp.27 - “Still indomitable was the reply--"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."

The phrase “I care for myself”, has a resonance beyond the question of morality, to the question whether, when men and women make critical decisions, there is a gender component. Not whether the gender based conclusion is better but rather that in aggregate, women and men arrive at substantially different results in a personal crisis. A woman's “I care for myself” extends for those around her, is more complex than the simplistic question of morality - an ideological decision. Not surprising since morality has a strong religious basis and religious doctrine has historically been interpreted by men. Even in the present day, among the RC there is a prohibition of women as priests. As if only man can intercede with a god who is male.

Thus the question, is the decision making of the prefrontal cortex substantially different in women and men: the information flow of the left and right hemispheres? If so, then it would seem that in Jane Eyre, Charlotte explored a question way ahead of her times.

Reference:
A conversation with authors Katty Kay and Clare Shipman about their book “Womenomics”. Charlie Ross show, June 3, 2009

[kiki1982]

The passage of chapter 27 says exactly what it says:


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?

What principles are they? It is clear to me, I don't know what other people would read in those same words.

As I said before, we should not confuse historical morality with religious doctrine. Religious doctrine has stayed much the same, while morality has changed. Why? Because of the ruling classes or the middle-classes. Afraid of moral deprivation, from time to time the middle-classes revolt against the 'excesses' of the higher and lower classes. They desperately want to seperate themselves from both and use morality to do that. It was the case in the Victorian period (the middle-classes defining themselves), in the early 20th century, and it is the case now with the debate about swear-words. It has nothing or very little to do with men or women.

Patriarchal society, though, has always been, and still is in the world. As such, it is not surprising that a political institution as the papacy cannot change it, even if they liked. It is a lot more complicated than people think. Hence the dicsussion about homosexuals in the Anglican church. One would think it a clear case: priests are allowed to have a/any relationship. Not, as it seems. And the opposition comes mainly from America, and so the British wing of the Anglican church cannot allow for homosexuals to explicitly experience their sexuality if they have a function in the church. Because that would cause a schism. The papacy and the Queen need to keep the church together, so as it is famously said: 'Leading the flock, is looking in which direction they go and walk in front.' Both the Queen andthe Pope have to do so in order to keep it together. If the largest part of the Catholic world is opposed to women priests, the pope has no choice. Western Europe, on the other hand would like women priests also to solve their own problems of priest-flow...

The morality Wilde let through in his Dorian Gray is of a total different order, and the man came from a totally different class as Charlotte. Hence the free ideas about homosexuality.

Morality is not religous doctrine and as such, it cannot be demanded. Morality is made by the masses who follow roughly the same idea. As such, Charlotte had certain morals, and a belief. The two should not be confused.

[sweetsunray]

- I care for myself -

To me that is the expression of someone who chooses to stand by what they believe will upkeep their own integrity in their self-judgement. Whether people call that being true to God or their higher selves is to me irrelevant. In both instances it indicates that there's some inner witness voice that will judge you to be untrue to ideals, beliefs and morals that you hold sacred, if you do not act according to them. You can deceive others, but you cannot deceive yourself. And Jane obviously believes that she would be deceiving herself, her own ideals if she were to be pretending to be Rochester's wife in a foreign country where people wouldn't know better. She would consider herself his mistress. More, she believes that as a mistress, especially in the attempt to deceive herself, that she would lose her self-respect. And once she loses her self-respect, Rochester will lose respect for her as well.

While Jane's ideals may be influenced by her religious beliefs and social doctrine of the time, the peek in her childhood has always suggested to me that some of her strongest felt ideals were born to her, rather than inbred. As a child she is especially sensitive to injustice, and she might have simply regarded it as an injustice to Bertha to become Rochester's mistress.

And I even thin it's very possible for a personality to be born with inner convictions and moral ideals without it being bred by religion and society, purely based on personal experience. My earliest memory is of my 2nd birthday. Whatever the events, it resulted in me feeling an injustice (that another child who didn't have her birthday got to pick a gadget before me), extreme envy (over the colour of the gadget), but more importantly I felt extremely guilty over my envy. So, I chose to shut up and settle with a gadget in a hated colour. I never told a soul about it until I was 12 (and then everyone, including my daycare mother during a visit for old times' sake, indicated they felt I would have had the right to speak out). I had no brother or sisters or any other circumstance where I could have been taught that envy was a "bad" feeling. That self-judgement was a complete inner judgement based on my own inner morals. And to this day, I avoid being envious as well as jealous, nor ever attempt to purposefully create the feeling with others. Anyway, imo, not everything is taught and a great many things can be an inner aspect that comes with birth, including morals. Jane's seems to be the moral of fair-play and doing justice.

[Peripatetics]

- I care for myself -
While Jane's ideals may be influenced by her religious beliefs and social doctrine of the time, the peek in her childhood has always suggested to me that some of her strongest felt ideals were born to her, rather than inbred. As a child she is especially sensitive to injustice, and she might have simply regarded it as an injustice to Bertha to become Rochester's mistress.


"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it:"* JE, and an afternoon to look forward to: Ramansky's 'On the Dnieper' . So even if the Amsterdamian damns my opinions as 'irrelevant', I'll try to explain my views on '- I care for myself -'.

First, 'I care for myself ', is poetically pregnant. Almost limitless of the Jane that Charlotte created. But only so, Jane does not reflect Charlotte's morality, not the Victorian morality, nor a Christian morality. She is self contained. Importantly she is not static. It's pedantic to note that the moral compass of the young girl at Gateshead Hall, at Lowood, Thornfield Hall and at the manor-house of Ferndean, is not the same. Jane's her moral compass not static. 'I care for myself ' reflects a Jane after the aborted wedding and her experiance of loss of love, the Jane that declares "Certainly--unless you object. 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."

When sweetsunray writes : “More, she believes that as a mistress, especially in the attempt to deceive herself, that she would lose her self-respect. “ I would answer in Jane's own words - 'you little know me'.
Perhaps initialy it would have been so but as Jane lived in Rochester's company, I think that the moral status of a mistress would have been 'irrelevant'. As Jane remarked - ' in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine.' To put it into moral judgment is but speculation, that is an extrapolation of our own morality.

The more interesting question is - “While Jane's ideals may be influenced by her religious beliefs and social doctrine of the time, the peek in her childhood has always suggested to me that some of her strongest felt ideals were born to her, rather than inbred.”, that is whether the child's mind is a blank where language and hence values are written on by society or as has been suggested by Pinker and Chomsky that some organizing principles, of justice for instance, are inborn. A view that sweetsunshine qoute suggests.
And in this, a narrow case, ‘I care for myself’, would suggest that the question only has a personal answer, since the context is literature, not cognitive philosophy.
What do you think?

[kiki1982]

@Peripatetics:


And what is the answer to that question? Or does one deny that one is shaped by the society in which one lives?

The moral status of a mistress is not irrelevant. At leastnot to the mistress herself. As it was put into a film adaptation of the novel in the nineties: 'How can I lie with you, knowing that I'm not your wife?' He answers: 'No-one will know...' (the thing about the villa) and then she yells: 'Me! I will know it, and it will eat away at my soul...' That is just to whom it matters: if she found it wrong, morally, to be his mistress, people might not know, but she will know and that is her problem. Where those ideas come from is not so important, the thing is that they are definitely there. Had she had no problem with that, she would have become his mistress and waited for Bertha to die. As it is, she did not. And why? I leave the guessing to you.

This thing about morality is not speculation, it is observation.

[sweetsunray]

So even if the Amsterdamian damns my opinions as 'irrelevant', I'll try to explain my views on '- I care for myself -'.

If the Amsterdamian is to be me (I'm Antwerpian, remember :p) then no, I don't think your opinion is irrelevant.

Hmm, my own personal views on integrity are certainly involved in what I wrote, and in a nutshell it is this: integrity belongs to the individual and for themselves to be determined, noone else's.

I think this because "integrity" means "acting and judging your actions according to what you truly believe to be right." It's thus a self-reflective process that others can neither touch nor influence. Others can only either compare the actions of another against their own morals (or society's morals via laws), or they can compare and judge someone's morals against theirs. But the "integrity" belongs to the individual... only that person can truly know what they consider to be right. Others may guess what that person thinks would be right and be pretty close, but it is often hard to put into words for a particular situation with particular circumstances what this "right" is, excactly because these situations involve a lot of conflicting emotions, expectations, beliefs, etc.

In theory, someone who may be amoral (having morals severely deviant of mine) in my eyes can still have his or her integrity intact, as long as they "know" they acted in the way they believe to be right... Meanwhile, someone who may act according to professed morals that I may approve can have no integrity simply because deep down they believe something different, and hence they are lying to themselves.

So, integrity is about not deceiving yourself with regards to your actions versus your personal morals.

Jane seems to see integrity in a similar way. Rochester often notes how Jane does not judge him. And she does not. There is but one person she judges and that is Mrs Reed, when she's a child. And Mrs Reed is one of the clearest examples in the book of a person who is deceiving herself: Reed swears to everyone, including herself, that she tried her very best to do right by Jane, while nothing can be farther from the truth. As a child Jane feels the need to point this out to Mrs Reed, whereas she refrains from it at Mrs Reed's death bed. Jane has come to recognize and trust that people will admit their self-deception to themselves in the end and God. Curiously, that is exactly what Mrs Reed does. While she may still hate Jane, at least she's not deceiving either herself or Jane about it, but thoroughly admit she wronged Jane.

While the judgement process is personal, it is also equal/the same for everyone, no matter what their morals and religion they have.

When I wrote


To me that is the expression of someone who chooses to stand by what they believe will upkeep their own integrity in their self-judgement. Whether people call that being true to God or their higher selves is to me irrelevant. In both instances it indicates that there's some inner witness voice that will judge you to be untrue to ideals, beliefs and morals that you hold sacred, if you do not act according to them.

I only mean that to me the integrity preservation process within an individual is not just similar but absolutely the same, no matter what religious beliefs they may have had. One person may call it "an issue between their maker and themselves", another may call it "an issue between my id and higher self", and there may be 100 different versions. However, in both instances the one who's going through this integrity process will at least always know deep down they would be lying to themselves if they do not follow what they already know deep down.

And for a religious person, God becomes involved, because God is supposed to be able to see into a person's heart, and thus know how self-deceptive a person has been or not. Aside from yourself, He is the sole one who can judge your integrity. If you can stand before God without being found wanting of self-honesty, then you can stand before yourself knowing 100% you did what you think the right thing. They mean and are the same thing (to me anyway).

Jane makes several allusions to this, both by mentioning how to relate to God and to herself, but also when she reflects on and advizes both Rochester and Reed.

"I care for myself" is just one of those allusions. It could in theory mean taking physical care of oneself. But certainly that is not Jane's point. If it is not physical, it could reflect on emotional or mental well being. And yet we know she suffers emotionally, so it's not meant to indicate "emotional well being". That only leaves the mental well being. Since, she's not going mad, nor does she believe she's losing her mental faculties, the mental well being would indicate taking care her mental self is not in conflict... and that is where "integrity" comes in.

Compare, Rochester's utterances to Jane's. He does not just want to defy society, but God himself and become a bigamist. His admittance that he wants to defy God, shows to us how he's trying to act against his own morals. It means that while Rochester exclaims as often as he would that he's not married and does not have a wife, that he in fact considers himself very much married to Bertha. He is trying to convince himself that he's not, but he's trying to deceive himself. If he would truly not consider himself married he would not consider himself at odds with God. Hence, why Jane reminds him to communicate with and look for God.

It is curious to how he uses Jane as his moral compass. He asks Jane whether he acted right in taking on the responsibility of Adèle. In contrast, he never even asks her opinion regarding his relationship and dealings with Adèle's mother: during and how he ended it. Obviously, Rochester is not in conflict with himself over any of his dealings with Celine Varons. But he seems to be with regards to Adèle. By asking Jane he's not asking for society's approval. He does not feel he needs to explain it to Mrs Fairfax or Blanche Ingram. But he does seek it with Jane.

And I think it has to do with how he regards Jane to be a mirror of himself, his good alter ego. He is seeking for self-approval of his actions, but he is unable to face his own inner self, and projects it outside of himself into Jane. He first seeks it over Adèle, but eventually over Bertha and inhowfar he's married to her. The parting conversation between them, as well as Jane's later defense against StJohn reveals that Jane refused to judge him on this. Her leaving is not a rejection of Rochester nor a rejection of his love for her and vice versa. What she does is leave him to himself and God to judge himself. And only after he has come to terms with himself and God is he allowed to reach out to her again.


But only so, Jane does not reflect Charlotte's morality, not the Victorian morality, nor a Christian morality. She is self contained.

exactly


Importantly she is not static. It's pedantic to note that the moral compass of the young girl at Gateshead Hall, at Lowood, Thornfield Hall and at the manor-house of Ferndean, is not the same.

Agreed. The integrity process can occur while the moral compass may alter.


When sweetsunray writes : “More, she believes that as a mistress, especially in the attempt to deceive herself, that she would lose her self-respect. “ I would answer in Jane's own words - 'you little know me'.
Perhaps initialy it would have been so but as Jane lived in Rochester's company, I think that the moral status of a mistress would have been 'irrelevant'. As Jane remarked - ' in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine.' To put it into moral judgment is but speculation, that is an extrapolation of our own morality.

Jane's urging for Rochester to consult and rely on God shows the involvement of the integrity process and thus measuring against one's own morals. And Jane's beliefs regarding marriage seem to follow the idea that a marriage is a union and bond sanctioned by God. The fact that Rochester cannot divorce his wife, and is still married would mean to Jane that God still sanctions the union of Rochester and Bertha. Meanwhile Rochester tries to convince himself (and Jane) that it's only a social law bond and that Jane's and Rochester's love union intead would be the true marriage, even if they are not before society. Jane can choose to allow herself to be convinced of that, or not. Yet, she doesn't. (And CB seems to indicate it would be unsanctioned with the destruction of the tree after Jane accepts Rochester's marriage proposal). Had Jane in any way believed what Rochester tried to convince her of to be true, she would have become his mistress. But she didn't, at that time, in that situation, with Jane being Jane as she is right after finding out about Bertha. So, to admit to it, while knowing it to be unsanctioned, would be self-deception. And that is what Jane cannot and will not do to herself.

And I cannot perceive how what would start as a self-deception to Jane (living with Rochester in the mediterranean villa as his mistress, but considering themselves as married) would become a truth to Jane. That does not mean I think Jane's morals can change in time, just not while first entering into self-deception. One Truth can become another Truth in time, but self-deception will always remain a self-deception...

The past is unchangeable, unalterable. Once a person acts, it already has become the past. If the person acted in all honesty to their morals at that time, then they cannot regret it, even if after time their morals alter and they would act differently the next time in a similar situation. The self-honesty opens the door to growth and change. However, if a person acts dishonest to their own morals at that given time, they can only come to regret it and end up being stuck in it, because they can never undo the past.

Two characters in this book act dishonest to their own values: Mrs Reed and Rochester. And we witness how stuck they are in their regret. Instead of growth, they feel they have no other resource than to continue on the path of self-deception via the outer world. They both try to convince the outer world (including Jane) of another reality, in the hope that if will eventually convince themselves to be true and right. And they both fail. Jane continues without regret, even if she suffers. And it enables her to seek out Rochester even while not knowing yet he's a widower, not being sure yet even herself what she will or can be to him (friend, or lover, or wife).

So, it is quite possible imo that the Jane who returns might have chosen to be Rochester's mistress after her experiences with StJohn, if Bertha had survived the fire, and be at peace with it. StJohn and time create a new Truth for Jane, and thus alternative choices in a similar situation as before. But it is quite impossible to me that Jane would have eventually been at peace with choosing to be his mistress right after she learns about Bertha's existence.






The more interesting question is - “While Jane's ideals may be influenced by her religious beliefs and social doctrine of the time, the peek in her childhood has always suggested to me that some of her strongest felt ideals were born to her, rather than inbred.”, that is whether the child's mind is a blank where language and hence values are written on by society or as has been suggested by Pinker and Chomsky that some organizing principles, of justice for instance, are inborn. A view that sweetsunshine qoute suggests.

Yes. I do think that some essential values are inborn, especially those that involve the tit-for-that behaviour of our species.

[kiki1982]

Waw, that is exactly what I found via another road (Sleeping Beauty -and the moon-motif)!

[DawnsAtHeights]

But if so, why did Jane go back to Rochester? When she went looking for him, she didn't know he was a widower. The only circunstance that had changed was that she was now a independent woman thanks to her inheritance. She was free to love him without depending on him.

Actually, when Jane arrived at Ferndean Manor, she already knows that Rochester is widowed. She knows this from a shepherd, when she arrived at Thornfield, but Thornfield was just a ruin!

[kiki1982]

I think the poster was on about when she left Morton... Then she indeed does not know.

Jane learns what has happened in the past year not from a shepherd (that is the 2006 adaptation I think), but from the innkeeper of the Rochester Arms where Jane gets off the coach and who is ex-butler of 'the late Mr Rochester', say the current Mr Rochester's father.

[L.M. The Third]

Right. And the novel is quite ambiguous about what Jane expects to be the culmination of her trip to find Rochester. The 'voice' she hears is a means of escape from the pressure St. John is putting on her, and, of course, she does want to know what has become of Rochester, but it's a rather desperate decision. There's no saying what she would have done if Thornfield was still standing when she arrived. At least judging from her reticent behavior as she approaches Thornfield, I don't think she has any well-formed plan of her next steps.