In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the main character Jane struggles to find a balance between love and independence. She seeks to fulfill Maslow's basic need of belonging; however, she has personal values that she does not wish to sacrifice while looking for love. In the beginning of the book, Jane tries to please Mrs. Reed repeatedly, although by the end of her stay at the Reed household, she recognizes her efforts are futile. When the opportunity for a fresh start without the Reeds comes up, she feels hopeful. She views school as “a complete change… an entire separation from Gateshead” (30). At this point, she is asserting her independent from the Reed family. When Mr. Brocklehurst evaluates her suitability in the Reed household, Jane is anguished when Mrs. Reed tries to “wound [her] cruelly: …However carefully [she] obeyed, however strenuously [she] strove to please [Mrs. Reed], [her] efforts were still repulsed…[she] felt, though [she] could not have expressed the feeling, that [Mrs. Reed] was sowing aversion and unkindness along [her] future path” (41). When Mr. Brocklehurst declares that all the instructors would be informed of her deceiving nature, she believes that her dreams of being accepted by the school teachers and girls are already crushed by Mr. Brocklehurst prior to her arrival to the school. However, she does find a sense of belonging at school with Helen Burns and Miss Temple. Jane only seeks to leave Lowood after her new family, Helen and Miss Temple, have left Lowood.
Later in the book, she falls in love with Rochester because he accepts her for who she is. In one of the first encounters, Rochester forgets that she is being paid “thirty pound per annum for receiving his orders” (157) until Jane reminds him. She values his kindness which is evidenced by his caring eye for his dependents, and also his natural disposition to treat her on equal status. However, when she discovers Bertha, she realizes that she cannot continue living with Rochester. A marriage with Rochester would not be a marriage at all; instead, it would make her a mistress and she fears losing her independence over love. During her last encounter with Rochester, he tells her that she is wicked for leaving him after saying she loves him. She counters with the statement “it would be [wicked] if [she] obeyed him” (364). Jane knows that loving him is not the issue at hand. ‘Marrying’ Rochester would question her independent spirit, and at this point of the book, she cannot accept it with a compromise of love.
This is one of the most apparent struggles for Jane in the novel. Her whole life, she has sought love and independence. While she was under Mrs. Reed at Gateshead she was wholly dejected and unloved. Throughout the majority of her formative years, she was left alone and oppressed. Even when Mr. Brocklehurst comes to save her from torment at Gateshead, he promises to warn everyone at Lowood of her wickedness, “she shall be watched, Mrs. Reed” (41). She felt no love or sense of belonging from Brocklehurst or from Lowood. Finally, she finds her independence as a governess at Thornfield. She is at last able to be autonomous and has a sense of independence and freedom.
ReplyDeleteShe finds love in Rochester, the only person who has ever treated her like a proper human being. He forces her to confront the decision between retaining her independence or finally feeling the love from another by marrying him. She fears that a marriage with him will make her nothing more than his mistress, and she will not be independent anymore. It is the encounter with Bertha that makes her realize what a marriage to Rochester might look like. She would be shackled to his will, oppressed of her freedoms. She needed to be Rochester’s equal in order to marry him. She needed to be able to retain both the love that she desired and the independence that makes her Jane Eyre.