Jane Eyre: The Conflict Between Love and Autonomy

¶ … Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, the desire of the protagonist to be loved is overpowered by her desire to be independent and autonomous. The difficulty, of course, is that Jane Eyre is first published in 1847: this was a world in which the humble governess who gives the novel its title was without rights and opportunities. In their groundbreaking feminist study of English literature The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar note that the novel was considered shocking, but not for any of the reasons that a twenty-first century reader might expect: they note that "Victorian reviewers….were disturbed not so much by the asocial sexual vibrations between hero and heroine as by the heroine's refusal to submit to her social destiny" (338). This "refusal to submit to…social destiny" is the heart of Jane's desire for independence and autonomy, to the extent that they were even achievable in this time period. A closer examination of the text will reveal the way in which Bronte constructs her heroine's narrative in order to structure an emotional journey which could arguably be viewed as a feminist journey as well.

Jane's integrity is continually tested throughout the novel. From the novel's outset, we can see the ways in which external circumstances impinge upon Jane's internal sense of integrity: here Jane is only ten years old, orphaned and living with her maternal uncle. Yet the imagery Jane uses to describe the circumstances is almost shocking: "no jail was ever more secure….the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present" (Bronte II). Jane's identification of her social status as one of a chattel slave or prisoner is, of course, shocking. But it does a long way toward explaining Jane's profound hunger for equality. One noteworthy instance that demonstrates Jane's egalitarian sense, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, is that Jane refuses to treat the poor any better than she herself is treated: as she notes in the third chapter, "I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind…I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste" (Bronte III).

If this indicates Jane Eyre is judgmental, she proves that she is throughout the novel. Jane strongly objects to Rochester's lustful immorality, although when the issue is actually discussed, Jane couches her objection not in terms of sex but obedience: when Rochester says "It would not be wicked to love me," Jane ripostes "It would to obey you" (Bronte XXVII). Robert B. Martin notes that the style of conversation between Jane and Rochester itself is indication of Jane's placement of equality above love, noting that "only equals like Jane and Rochester dare to speak truth couched in language of unadorned directness" (Martin 94). Indeed Jane seems to place so little emphasis on sexual indulgence that she willingly accepts religion to help curb her passions, although crucially at the novel's end she rejects the offer of religiosity to finally unite with Rochester. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates, in an essay on Jane Eyre, notes the religious theme is sounded at the book's end only to be rejected, noting of St. John's final words recorded by Jane Eyre that "those who have love have no need of this particular Lord Jesus" (Oates 58).

But does this mean that Jane does not desire to be loved? Of course she does. Bronte presents the heroine as one who lacks emotional sustenance and who therefore seeks self-worth. But Jane refuses to submit, and thus escapes Brocklehurst and St. John for precisely similar reasons: Brocklehurst is an abusive environment, whereas St. John requires a life of submission. But in some sense, the dialectic between independence and attachment is always working up to the reconnection of Jane with Rochester. Gilbert and Gubar note that Bronte deliberately ensures that "Jane's first meeting with Rochester is a fairytale meeting. Charlotte Bronte deliberately stresses mythic elements" (Gilbert and Gubar 351). But they additionally note that Rochester's first action is to slip on the ice and swear, undercutting all possible romantic fairytale associations. Jane's final acceptance of married love with Rochester is conditional upon two things. One is the financial equality that arrives when Jane gets her inheritance. The other, strangely, is Rochester's blindness. As Gilbert and Gubar note of the final union of the protagonist with Rochester, "when both were physically whole they could not, in a sense, see each other because of the social disguises -- master/servant, prince/Cinderella -- blinding them, but now that those disguises have been shed, they can (though one is blind) see and speak even beyond the medium of the flesh" (Gilbert and Gubar 368)