My Love for Jane Eyre

Alert: Spoilers. If you haven’t read it, (and you really should) then don’t read, it will ruin it.

I was at a reunion, talking with a cousin about books.  She mentioned Jane Austen and some others and then started talking about Jane Eyre.  She wasn’t much of a fan of Jane Eyre because she thinks that Jane falls in love with Mr. Rochester, not because of who he is, but simply because he’s there.  If it had been any other man there, she would have fallen in love with him instead.  I bristled at this.  How dare anyone attack my precious Jane?  I adore that book.  It may very well be my favorite. However, I didn’t argue with her, simply because I’m bad at arguments.  I can’t think of why I’m right when I’m in the moment; it takes me a while to figure it out.  Perhaps that is why I prefer writing.  I don’t do well thinking on my feet, or more accurately, argueing on my feet.

But I did think about it later and I came to the conclusion that she may be partially right. Having Jane and Rochester as the only two people that they really interract with likely is the catalyst for their relationship. And I’m fine with that. Because isn’t that how most relationships start? Because of our circumstances? Because the boy happened to meet the girl?

But the love story, the actual falling in love is not what makes this story great.  Don’t get me wrong, I adore that part of the story as well.  It doesn’t bother me that the only catalyst for the love is a simple respect and attraction between them.  I have no objection to their falling in love simply because of their circumstances. But that’s not what the story is.  She knows that it makes no real sense for her to be in love with this man – this brooding man, who is rough and rude and not particularly physically attractive and often brusque.  She knows that her loving him is ridiculous and makes no sense.  “I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester; I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me.”

Part of the beauty and genius of this book is that she knows.  She is so entirely self-aware and so entirely in control of herself.  She had learned to love him.  She did not love him at first sight, she had learned to love him over time in spite of his rough exterior, his arrogance and lack of charm.  To me, this is what makes her love so real.  She knew his flaws and loved him anyway.  She had made the choice to love him and so she could not unlove him, regardless of how he treated her.  She had always known that she was below him, that he would not and could not love her in return and she had accepted the situation for what it was.  That she is so entirely practical about it, makes the love so much sweeter and the heartbreak much more acute when we discover his wife.

And that is where the ultimate genius of this book lies.  Because he is in love with her and she’s in love with him and they decide to be married and there is no reason whatsoever for them not to be married.  He doesn’t care one bit what other people think and she had no kin to object even if it was a bad match – she is accountable to no one but herself.  They know each other’s flaws and they love each other anyway.  Of course they should get married.

And then the wife is revealed, the very minute before Jane is to be married to Mr. Rochester.  And so Jane goes to her room, takes off her wedding dress, lays upon her bed and thinks through what she knows she must do without shedding a tear.  There is no decision to be made–no considerations to weigh and stress over–because her path is clear.  He is married, that is all.  When she finally leaves her room and encounters Mr. Rochester, there is no indecision.  It doesn’t matter that she loves him or that his wife is a lunatic forced on him under false circumstances.  He is already married, and so the situation is out of her hands.

That is why I love this book.  Jane’s moral compass is so entirely sure that there is no need for her to even consider falling victim to temptation.  He is married and so she must leave.  She never once tries to justify straying from what she knows to be right.