Strength of Character in Jane Eyre

John Eldredge, in his book Wild at Heart, claims that men want three basic things in life: beauty, an adventure, and a fight. By comparison to that claim, Jane Eyre seems to be relatively feminine, since it lacks the element of fight. Jane, the character, does not seek a fight, does not seek to impose her view of the world on others, does not try to kill dragons or build a kingdom.

As an example of a more masculine Bildungsroman, look at the recent movie Batman Begins. The adolescent Bruce Wayne opts for revenge when the killer of his parents is paroled. When someone else kills the murderer before Wayne can, Wayne retreats from his home city and wanders the world until a mentor finds him and takes him to the headquarters of the League of Shadows for philosophical, emotional, and physical training. Wayne thus gains a strong sense of identity and integrity, as a result of which he refuses to join the League, returning instead to Gotham to follow his own pathway as the Batman.

Although Jane Eyre, especially by comparison to Batman Begins, is a feminine book, it is not pink and fluffy. Jane becomes a remarkably strong character who displays unusual insight into her own nature and a determination to be faithful and true to the responsibilities laid upon her. The book charts her growth from immaturity into that strength and integrity. The romantic interest of the book revolves around Jane’s growth, her integrity, and her struggle to be faithful to herself and to those around her.

At the beginning of the book a new friend, Helen Burns, challenges Jane’s attitude toward those who have mistreated her. When Jane on p. 48 (All quotations from Jane Eyre in this essay cite the paperback Bantam Classic edition / March 1981) comments, “If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should probably break it under her nose,” Burns responds (in part), “It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you: and, besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”

On p. 50 we see a continued interchange, in which Helen Burns, in all kindness and friendship, explicitly labels Jane’s attitude as heathen and un-Christian:

“But I feel this, Helen: I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”

“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine; but Christians and civilized nations disown it.”

“How? I don’t understand.”

“It is not violence that best overcomes hate–nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”

“What then?”

“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct hour example.”

“What does he say?”

“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”

Over the course of several, Jane watches Helen embody that attitude in her own behavior and responses to appalling injustice and neglect. Her serenity and even affection for those that mistreat her astound Jane. By the end of the novel, about nine years later, we see these same qualities in Jane.

But the mature Jane avoids an extreme that seems at times to endanger Helen. Jane does not become a doormat for the abuse of others. Like Helen, she accepts the responsibilities that are hers, but, by the time she has left Lowood school, she has also learned to distinguish between the true responsibilities laid on her by God and the expectations of others. She has also learned not to be dismayed or deterred by the refusal of others to love her or to carry out their own responsibilities. Those situations cause her pain, sometimes deeply, but they no longer cripple her as they did when she was a child. Her speech (pp. 29 f.) at age ten to her Aunt Reed, who has just called her a Liar, shows her impatience with the injustice of others:

“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed: and this book about the Liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies and not I.”

Mrs. Reed’s hands lay still on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.

“What more have you to say?” she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.

That eye of hers, that voice, stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued–

“I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.”

Thus Jane at ten. Nine years later, when Mrs. Reed is dying, Jane returns to a house that was no more hospitable than before, calling Mrs. Reed “aunt” (p. 225) and “Dear Mrs. Reed” (p. 226). Even after Mrs. Reed confesses that she had prevented Jane from being adopted by a wealthy uncle who her to live with him, she fetches Mrs. Reed a glass of water and says (p. 227), “Love me, then, or hate me, as you will, … you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s and be at peace.” Jane has learned who she is and has learned how to act on the basis of that knowledge with integrity and compassion.

I once drank a lemon-lime soda, thinking it was straight lemonade. It tasted awful. When I realized that is was a soda, and not the juice drink, it tasted good. Our perceptions of an experience are often affected by the expectation we begin with. Readers who expect or demand an adventure with life-threatening drama, villains to be defeated, and conquests to be won by force of might and cleverness will likely be disappointed by Jane Eyre. The heroine’s circumstances are occasionally life-threatening, but they are more a matter of endurance than sharp conflict. “Adventure” is too outgoing a label for the episodes of the book, and even the cruelest of its characters does not merit the title “villain.” This book lacks the fast pace and the high energy to which current movies have accustomed us, and so it will lose the audience that demands that level of action. But its examination of character-building and of the interplay of personalities gives valuable insights into a wisely lived, Christian life, whether the reader is male or female. Its depth and breadth will broaden the receptive reader.