In one great blast of reading, many thanks to my children for being understanding and fending for themselves while Papa read "the lady book" (as my 3 year old son referred to it), I finished Jane Eyre. I was told during the course of this novel by a friend that I would cry at the ending. I'm not sure how I could cry given the situation at the end. As usual, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
We last left Jane she had left the warmth and hospitality of Moor House for her own austere cottage in her new situation as a teacher to the local poor children. To our modern sensibilities we can easily gloss over some of the statements Jane makes regarding her pupils that were, in all actuality, fairly revolutionary. She declares of them,
"I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest geneaology; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born."
This, in the Victorian era, must have been a touch of a slap in the face. In a time where nobility was still revered as being infallible and your "betters" it would take a character such as Jane to both see and point out that there is little "better" about those "betters". Consider that every "best born" that she has encountered has proven themselves to be both ill mannered and of a baser quality than the servants and commoners all around her. As a teacher of both the noble and the common she would see that there is little difference at all. Every religious person is so far removed from the example of the Lord Jesus Christ as to be unrecognizable. The "heroes" of the novel are men of science (the doctor who tended her compassionately at the Reeds), a headmistress of the school who claimed no particular faith, a child riddled with consumption, and a man a "lord" who cares nothing about the hierarchy of things. The villains claim to know Christ and seek to force change in others while the heroes barely claim Christ at all, have no idea what is best for others let alone themselves sometimes, admit their own faults and failings, and don't seek to change others much at all.
And here is where I must bring up St John Rivers, Jane's cousin. It's hard to decide which "villain" is more vile; Brocklehurst vs. Rivers vs. Aunt Reed...in a cage match to the death! All three are vile in such very different ways. Aunt Reed you can almost forgive simply because of the situation. Does that grant absolution? Likely not. She damaged a child, but if you're a parent you know how easy it is to think you are doing what is "best" for a particularly willful child only to turn around and realize you've made a horrible mistake. Brocklehurst's lack of consistency is to the point of self delusion, which isn't born out of cruelty though it may in effect be cruelty. As with Aunt Reed he seems to genuinely believe what he is doing is what is actually best for these "slatterns".
St John is in a whole other category. Aunt Reed and Brocklehurst didn't seem to use their "piety" for selfish and controlling ends. Neither actually wanted anything from those they treated poorly. St John, however, was more than happy to worm his way into Jane's heart and use whatever he found there to manipulate her into meeting his desire.
On the surface St. John appears to be a decent sort of fellow. He's willing to take Jane in though he mistrusts her at first. He rises in the middle of inclement weather to attend to the needs of a poor person in his congregation. St. John roams far and wide on a daily basis to see to the spiritual health of his parish. All honorable things. I initially took his lack of conversation as general deepness of thought or adherence to the scripture that says one should only speak what is beneficial and avoid idle talk. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the silence is that of a calculating mind. He manipulates Jane into learning Hindustani instead of the German she has been studying. Well, manipulates is too weak a word. He pretty much demands. And why does Jane comply? Our typically strong willed Jane seems to just accept his will over her own. He did save her from certain death. He is her highly respectable cousin so...there is some feeling of indebtedness to be sure. But he begins to push her harder and harder the closer he gets to his date of shipping out to India as a missionary. She begins to sense something is amiss when she realizes the following,
"As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation."
And then the other shoe drops, as it were, and from out of left field he asks her to be his wife and to accompany him to India. First of all...first cousin marriage...yeah...that's weird. He confesses that he's been molding her and shaping her (aka grooming...ya jerk) to become his perfect help meet. She says "As a sister, yeah, totally I'll go with you to India." (abridged version) He continues to demand it has to be as his wife.
Pages upon pages are dedicated to their back and forth on this issue. It very closely reflects the back and forth between Jane and Rochester cattiness, but there is no fun, no joy in it. Why? Because St John is a controlling and manipulative jerk.
Maybe it's because I've watched "Kingdom of Heaven" too many times (Love that film. It speaks to men the same way Jane Austen speaks to women) or perhaps it's my adequate knowledge of history, but anytime someone even hints at saying "God wills it" apart from the original apostles and Jesus himself...I'm going to question the heck out of that presumption. These two go back and forth, Jane the ever resistant when cornered, and here we see the difference between the two suitors. When Jane stands her ground before Rochester, yes he's not happy about it, but his admiration for her grows because she is being very much who she is. She is very much being everything Rochester loves her for. When obstinate before St John he constantly plays the "God's Will" card as a means to force her to bend to his will. Jerk.
She is, unsurprisingly, smart enough to notice that "he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge." He then overplays his hand in responding, "Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case your should be numbered with those who have denied the faith..." Oh, she sees him for what he is now. "As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission -" He's austere, despotic and worried of limiting himself to barren obscurity. All of his trips to help his parishoners, when none would go out into the night and the gale, is for his own glory, not the Lord's.
In reference to the very difference between her refusal to her suitors she tells the reader, "To have yielded then (Rochester) would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now (St John) would have been an error of judgement."
Allow me an aside here to reflect on my own relationship.
There is something in the "religious" mindset that doesn't know what to do with a willful woman. I adhere to the Christian faith intensely and am constantly baffled by this. I've found myself quite unwittingly having been a "Feminist", of sorts, all my life when compared to much of the views regarding women in the older generations whom I've listened to. My wife comes from a far more rigid, right wing, patriarchal system than I ever did. I was raised "non-denominational" which is probably where most of my flexible spiritual thinking comes from, I suppose. We went from Methodist, to Baptist, to Assembly of God, to "community church". I can pretty much praise with anybody. However, there's been a noticeable thread throughout each of them that, as I said, doesn't know what to do with a willful spirited woman. When they find one they'll talk about how she's supposed to be submissive, meek, gentle, kind, respectful and all these virtues that really aren't meant to be limited to women.
So, when I found my wife one of the odd things was that half the attraction was to how spirited and vibrant and willful she was. Well, IS still. She has her own mind and it is a fabulous mind. She's more intelligent than me (by 2 IQ points, but still I grant her the credit of it at every opportunity) and I so value how differently than me she thinks. She has a very strong personality and is intimidated by no one.
She'd told me this before, but it has come up in conversation while reading Jane Eyre, that her parents and grandparents were flabbergasted with her idea of marriage. She declared that she wasn't going to marry a authoritarian man or a controlling man, that she would only marry someone who would make decisions with her. "But...what if you disagree? The man is the head of the house (in our faith) and so he gets to make the decisions. What happens when you disagree?" She shrugged it off and said, "We'll talk it out and come to a consensus." As her husband of 15 years I can tell you that this is precisely what happens, and not because she pushed her philosophy. It's because from the beginning we mutually respect each other and each other's strengths. Now, as a Christian, yes, I do agree that I am the "head of the house" and have the "final say" power granted by God...but if I don't have to pull rank why should I? When people have told me half joking "Will, control your wife!" I jokingly reply back "Ha! You try it and see how far you get", but the truth of the matter is we talk. We share our perspectives (sometimes loudly) and we do hammer out a consensus. 8 times out of 10 we both look at a problem and can see a clear path. The other 2 times it takes some thought and usually we're one or both of us missing information. If my wife and I discussed it and I could see rationally what she could not see and it was going hurt damage one or both of us then and only then would I "pull rank", as it were. I married a rational, intelligent, clear thinking woman. To "pull rank" just because I can would be to deny that she is any of that.
The older generation of ladies, not just the men, also have tended to tell the younger ladies "how to be". In some instances this is actually beneficial and wise advice. My wife has been given advice on a number of occasions to just be quiet, smile and nod, and obey, keep your opinions to yourself, let the man make the mistakes and have his way and that's how you find peace in a marriage. Yeah. Not even so much. How is that being a "helpmate"? How is that being a "co-laborer"? That's not having a wife. That's having an employee. I didn't marry her to just sit there and look pretty, to be seen and not heard. The farther I've gotten into this book the more I realized I sought my wife and married my wife because she's very much like Jane. She even wants to learn to paint.
We not return you to your regularly scheduled program:
Jane "flees" Morton in order to find out more information about her beloved Rochester who as it turns out, is no longer impeded by a previous marriage. Granted he is now blind and mutilated, but none of this even phases Jane because, well, why would it? She does not love with her eyes, but her soul.
When she first appears Rochester doubts his senses and his sanity. I love how the moment she mentions that she is an independent woman with five thousand pounds a year his response is, "Ah! this is practical - this is real! ... I should never dream that." Money was never an issue, never a negative or a positive to him.
Like any man Rochester is leery of imposing his mutilated and unkempt self upon Jane. She would have to feed him, lead him by the hand (literally...one hand is all he has left), and bathe him. He sees himself as an elder invalid and doubts Jane would ever be content as his nurse. She declares nothing would make her happier. Rochester plays a verbal "card" to test her meaning by declaring it is because she delights in sacrifice.
"Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms around what I value - to press my lips to what I love - to repose on what I trust; is that to make sacrifice? If so, then certainly delight in sacrifice."
The conclusion is one of the sweetest, most heart warming, and life affirming I have ever read. Love has won, though in not the beautiful wrapped in a bow sort of way the world likes. Love has won in the way that life is...a mess.
Why has Jane Eyre endured for 150 years? Why is it so beloved? Because it is true. It is the way life is, warts and all...and there is hope.
Pax,
W
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