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