Free Will In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Jane always tries to keep herself respect at all cost despite the prevailing male dominance in her world. She knows that it is the time that obedience must end and resistance must begin if she wants to live according to her own will. Thus, Jane Eyre is created to set an example for females to give out her voices in the series of struggles in the man-dominant world.

In Charlotte Bronte’s’ “Jane Eyre”, Rochester uses disguise and duplicity to achieve his desire of marrying Jane. By doing so; he defies state law and divine will. Consequently, Rochester suffers physically, emotionally, and financially.

To set the stage in “Jane Eyre” our Protagonist, Jane Eyre is deceived by Mr.Rochester, one of the antagonists in order to “protect” his love, Jane. Mr. Rochester’s deception begins

Furthermore, Jane says “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Chapter 27, Bronte.) This statement greatly represents the growth that Jane has undergone. She no longer dreads the solitude that once haunted her because she respects herself enough to realize that she did not deserve to experience such great dismay. Through independence and self-recognition, Jane has discovered the importance of loving oneself. Without the reliance on the thoughts of others, the once extremely troubled girl found bliss through a lack of outside control. In regards to her relationship with Mr. Rochester, Jane understands that she must leave him behind to maintain her own well-being. She does not allow the wealth or proclaimed love from Rochester to skew her decisions and she does not linger to dominate the life of her lover. Instead, she moves forward to continue her endless pursuit of happiness and independence.

In the critical essay, “Almost my hope of heaven’: idolatry and messianic symbolism in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre,” Joshua analyzes the theme of idolatry and messianic symbolism in Jane Eyre. Joshua believes that Jane Eyre is a novel that revolves wholly on religion. He argues that, “one of the novel's purpose...is to show that human relationships are successful only if the partners in the relationship avoid the dangers of idolizing each other” (Joshua). I strongly agree with his opinion. One main reason Jane denies Rochester’s proposal is because she does not want to be inferior to him. When Rochester and Jane argue over whether or not Jane is going to let him order her around she says “‘I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right’” (Bronte 250). From the beginning, Jane sees Rochester as a sort of messiah. Due to this, she refuses to marry him for she believes they will never truly be equals. However, as the novel progresses, Jane goes through internal developments that enable her to realize that her and Rochester can be equals. She realizes her self-worth and finds a balance between her principles and feelings. In one of the final passages of the novel, Jane says that her and Rochester have been married for ten years and she is “[her] husband’s life as fully as he is [hers]” (Bronte PAGE NUMBER). Here, we can see the Jane and Rochester are equals. This supports Joshua’s claim, for their relationship is only successful because of their equality. Rochester is no longer Janes “master” and she still remains her own-self.

Throughout Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre is afflicted with the feud between her moral values, and the way society perceives these notions. Jane ultimately obtains her happy ending, and Brontë’s shrewd denouement of St. John’s fate juxtaposes Jane’s blissful future with St. John’s tragic course of action. When Jane ends up at the Moor House, she is able to discover a nexus of love and family, and by doing so, she no longer feels fettered to Rochester. Moreover, Rochester is no longer Jane’s only form of psychological escape, and thus Jane is in a position to return to him without an aura of discontent. At the end of the novel, Jane is finally able to be irrevocably “blest beyond what language can express” (Brontë 459) because she is “absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh” (459).

Jane Eyre’s life was full of oppression, neglect and sorrow. The novel was formed around a few main ideas. One of those would be the search of love and acceptance. Jane wanted to find a family so desperately and she wanted to belong to people. More than this though, Jane wanted to be treated equally. She was denied equality because of her social status, her income,her lack of “beauty” and most of all because of her gender. The book Jane Eyre shows the struggle that women face while attempting to overcome oppression and inequality in the Victorian era.

“Jane’s relationship with Rochester in the early part of the novel is based not on love but control, manipulation and secrecy. She does well to escape”

In his quest for self-transformation into a man of purity and harmony, Rochester sets his sights on Jane as the key to his renewal. Wooing her is different from any of his past lovers, though he seems to do so easily, but Rochester struggles to see that as he seduces and nearly marries Jane in bigamy, he is sullying the purity he so greatly craves. He is so blinded by the happiness close at hand, that he fails to realize Jane’s unhappiness and eventual departure. The loss of his physical vision is atonement for his lack of observing the effects of his actions, and consequently, darkens his life permanently without Jane, his moral eyes.

In this novel, Jane Eyre finds herself in love and engaged to the male character, Edward Rochester. After finding out that he is already married and she can no longer marry him, she decides to run away because she can no longer live having to look at the man she loves everyday. By throwing herself into this exile we can see herself decide to take this first step into independence and take more power in herself.

Written by Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre tells the story of its title character as she matures and experiences all that life has to offer in 19th century England. Jane Eyre grows up as an orphan and seeks work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets and falls in love with Mr. Edward Rochester. After discovering that he is already married, she is introduced to St. John Rivers; he asks her to marry him for the sole purpose of being a missionary’s wife and she instead returns to Mr. Rochester, who she truly loves, and marries him. Throughout her journey, she learns many thing about Mr. Edward Rochester and St. John Rivers. Both men display similar characteristics, but as foils they exhibit many different characteristics as well. Both

Rochester. Jane wanted equality for most of her life, because throughout Jane Eyre’s life she has only been put down. After meeting Mr. Rochester Jane felt equal to Mr. Rochester, and feel in love with him. Jane was intellectually equal to Mr. Rochester. Because Jane feels equal and feels loved Jane decided to sacrifice her dreams. Jane did not want to be anyone’s mistress rather Jane wanted to make a name for herself. Jane always dreamed of being loved by someone and build a school to educate unfortunate young girls, but Jane gave up her dreams of bringing positivity to the world. Jane was given a chance by St. John to travel to India, and educate the woman in India, but Jane happily rejects the proposal from St. John for Mr. Rochester’s love and to serve Mr. Rochester’s every need. Jane says this “Shake me off, then, sir—push me away, for I’ll not leave you of my own accord” (Brontë pg. 444) reassuringly to the jealous Mr. Rochester, and Jane saying this displays that Jane will be with Mr. Rochester through every tough time that life throws at them. From this it is shown that Jane values love and equality more than her hopes and

Through a close reading of the selected passage of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, a reader can see that Jane attempts to separate herself from her decisions by personifying her emotions and giving them a specific voice, which strongly reflects the societal views of the time. At this point in the story, Jane has discovered, on her wedding day, that Mr. Rochester is still married to a woman named Bertha, and that woman still lives in his house. Distraught, Jane locks herself in her room and tries to decide what she should do. When she wakes up the next day, she is again confronted with what she needs to do in the wake of her discovery.

Jane Eyre is a girl who lived her young life as an orphan due to poverty and having no reliance on anyone. Jane Eyre was of middle class, but was still impoverished. Growing up, Jane became a governess and this conditioned her to know and live the lower middle class. Jane’s personality attracted society and drove her to success. Aristocrats and the commoners stated that the social class that formed the 19th century society was created by two kinds of people. The 19th century did not rely on the wealth of the people since in this era was more about social class acceptance. Jane’s job did not require any hard labor - all she did was teach children in their households. When Jane fell in love with Rochester, she began to define her moral traits. She was offered an opportunity to stay at Rochester gatherings with his colleagues - Jane

Through the Victorian Age, male dominance deprived women from a certain freedom. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre repeatedly struggles to become an independent young lady due to the troublesome men in the story. John Reed controls Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst humiliates Jane, and Mr. Rochester sees women, in general, as objects. The author manages to depict patriarchal dominance through the characterization of John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester.