Jane Eyre :: essays papers

Jane Eyre Jane and Rochester Belong Together The overriding theme of Jane Eyre is Jane's continual quest for love. Jane searches for love and acceptance throughout the book. The intelligent, honest, plain-featured girl is forced to contend with oppression, inequality, and hardship. Jane's meets with a series of individuals who threaten her autonomy, but she maintains her principles of justice, human dignity, and morality, as well as her values of intellectual and emotional fulfillment. As a governess though, she is subject to economic and gender enslavement. Maturation and self-recognition become evident to the reader as Jane's journey pursues. However, it is not until Jane spends time at Moor House that her maturation is complete. Jane and Rochester, without a doubt, belong together. Jane needs only to discover this for herself. St. John emerges as the crucial character that helps Jane realize her destiny to be with Rochester. When Jane returns to Rochester, she is an independent woman, fully aware of her desire to love, as well as be loved. From their first meeting in Hay Lane, where Jane "bewitches" Rochester's horse, there is, between Jane and Rochester, an unspoken bond that slowly blossoms into true love and devotion. After what appears to be a brief engagement to the "honorable" Miss Blanche Ingram, whom everyone expects to marry Rochester, he mysteriously calls off the marriage plans and proposes to Jane. In his proposal to Jane, he bares his soul to her, allowing her to look, not into his eyes, but into his soul, where he reveals not the worldly exterior and miseries with which life has saddled him, but the true, pure being beneath. Rochester believes Jane to be his best earthly companion and the only woman who is his equal. Rochester's declaration of love and marriage proposal makes Jane exceedingly happy. Their relationship is alive with passion and the fiery union of two tormented souls imprisoned by Fate and the morals of their time. However, Jane worries about her financial inferiority. Jane hates the thought of marrying "above her station", as she does not want to feel that she somehow "owes" Rochester something. Her feelings and desires for Rochester are tightly bound with her feelings about her social position as well as her position as a woman. Jane tries to swallow her insecurities and continue with the plan to marry, but on their wedding day, Jane discovers Rochester is already married to a mad woman.