Jane Eyre and The Search for Independence

As a child at Gateshead, Jane is fully dependant on the Reeds (Brontë 13). In many ways she is a prisoner. Indeed, Jane’s imprisonment in the red room is the complete physical manifestation of her forced submission. Lower than the servants, for she does “nothing for her keep,” Jane is beaten by her cousin and begrudged by her aunt. Jane scoffs at the term “benefactress” for Mrs. Reed since her aunt’s aid comes with the hefty price of subjugation. Jane is told that she “ought not to think herself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed . . . it is her place to be humble, and to try to make herself agreeable to them”. Yet, as much as she tries, Jane cannot manage to make this happen:

“All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sister’s proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always brow-beaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favour? . . . I dared commit no fault: strove to fulfill every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking”.

Jane confesses that she is not prone to rebellion at the beginning of her story. It seems fitting, then, that the novel begins as Jane’s first bought of mutiny comes to pass when she tackles John for his mistreatment. This one instant of revolt seems to open the floodgates for Jane as she becomes more discontent with her position with the Reeds. When the final blowout occurs when Mrs. Reed deems Jane a liar in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, Jane’s passionate nature gets the better of her. Jane expresses her desire for love: “You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity”. Her want for love often hinders her chance for freedom and vice versa; the Reeds present the first instance where Jane achieves one while the other is absent. Jane’s rebuke to her aunt is at once truthful and liberating (34-5). Upon relieving her pent up frustration, Jane declares that “my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty” (35).

The result of Jane’s ten years at Gateshead is the revelation that obedience, when it goes against one’s own moral understanding, is a betrayal of oneself. “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” (54-5).

In the second stretch of Jane’s life, her education gained at Lowood provides her with the opportunity to break away from her relatives (39). The severing of this dependence allows for Jane to foster an education that will provide her with her livelihood for years to come—a necessity to gain her independence (80). Moreover, Jane is finally recognized as an individual through her budding friendships with Helen Burns and then Ms. Temple, attributing to a greater sense of self (70, 80). She gains intellectual freedom at the institution, something that she had not gotten with the Reeds, but she finds the monotony of her existence stifling after the eight years she spends there (81). At this point, Jane does not even consider complete freedom as an option, “a new servitude . . . does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me” (81-2). She remains realistic in what she can expect to obtain in a hierarchal society.

With her new servitude, Jane finds an intellectual equal in Mr. Rochester, but their different social standings remain an obstacle to their union (124, 143). In first entertaining the prospect of her and Rochester together, Jane says “a freshening gale wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy — a counteracting breeze blew off the land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion” (143). Jane still remains realistic in what she can expect in life.

Rochester’s proposed marriage threatens to rid Jane of her independence. At this point in time, because of Rochester’s superior financial status, Jane would always be his inferior, and he, her “master” (252). Jane is fully aware of this; she knows by accepting Rochester’s proposal she chances sacrificing her autonomy for love if she cannot relieve the financial difference between them. Jane believes “if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now”. This is why Jane makes the effort to write to her uncle Eyre before her wedding in hopes of acquiring even the smallest of fortunes (252). Without her own financial liberty, Jane is reluctant to accept any of the wealth Rochester desires to give her because she feels she has no right to it (252). In his effort to bestow her with jewels, Jane proclaims “never mind jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange” (243). Jane is adamant in not changing for anyone, Rochester included. Upon their engagement, Jane has no notion of becoming an elegant lady of a higher class; she maintains to be but herself: plain, without magnificent beauty or absolute compliance (244). By not becoming the classic lady of wealth, Jane exerts that true independence comes with being no one but yourself.

At the Moor house, Jane finally finds herself among equals in terms of both society and mind. “The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them . . . I could join Diana and Mary in all their occupations… There was a reviving pleasure in the intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time — the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.” (327). To be sure, Jane’s time with the Rivers gifts her with the familial kind of love that she has sought for so long (360). “I had found a brother: one I could be proud of, — one I could love; and two sisters whose qualities were such that… they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration… This was a blessing… not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight” (360). This love grants Jane a type of emotional nurturing that she needs to further herself as an independent. She has finally been able to find love without sacrificing her autonomy.

While teaching at the village school St. John tasked her with, Jane provides herself with a livelihood solely of her own making. “It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature”. Jane, despite being a bit out of her element in terms of her new students’ coarseness, preservers in teaching them. Jane admits that “the rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it”. The nature of her work deals with a rank that she has never encountered before. Her students are not as smart as the girls she taught at Lowood, or even as smart as Adéle. She has been placed in a situation that is of a sort of hard working poverty. However, this challenge enriches her self-government in the way that she now knows that she is fully able to take care of and provide for herself.

Jane is then able to gain complete financial independence upon inheriting her uncle’s large sum; with it, she gains societal freedom. With the fortune bestowed upon her, Jane has the freedom to no longer rely on anyone for her physical wellbeing. Her inheritance raising her to an equal level with Rochester, Jane is able to find what she has been searching for all along: a balance between love and independence. “No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am… I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine… consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude… we are precisely suited in character — perfect concord is the result”. In fact, Rochester’s injuries in some ways make Jane his superior since he comes to rely on her for his vision and right hand.

Jane’s decision to return to Rochester exhibits perhaps the most noteworthy facet of her understanding of freedom. The freedom of choice follows Jane throughout the novel. While Jane cannot, and knows that she cannot, control all aspects of her life, she does know that she has the will and the freedom to change her life when the need arises. First at Gateshead, it is Jane’s answer to the apothecary, “‘I should indeed like to go to school,’” that sets her entire story into motion. She knows “school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life”. Jane again enters into a new life by choice when she takes the initiative to advertise and go to Thornfield (82-4).

At Thornfield, Jane makes her opinions of independence most obvious. With heartbreak over Rochester’s faux wedding to Blanche Ingram, Jane asserts “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you”. When she eventually does choose to leave him, Rochester seems to acknowledge her statement, saying that “‘never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable as Jane… consider the resolute, wild, free thing… defying me, with more than courage — with a stern triumph!”. Despite her love’s pleading, Jane is resolute in her morals and makes the decision to leave him, once again altering her life irreversibly.

Just as she decides to leave Rochester, Jane turns down St. John’s proposal. Despite her own morality, and Rochester’s lack thereof, Jane finds St. John’s to be harsh, overwhelming, and, as a result, threatening. She knows that as St. John’s wife, she would be sacrificing any chance at romantic love; the same way that by accepting to be with Rochester she would be sacrificing her principles. For her independence, she must strike a balance between them. When she chooses to go back to Rochester when she is financially independent, she achieves that balance.

To be certain, the first sentence of the last chapter, “reader I married him,” exhibits both Jane’s equality with Rochester and her value of choice. Brontë could have just as easily put “reader, he married me,” but by expressly stating that Jane married Rochester, it expresses that it was her decision and with her free power that she did so.

Brontë demonstrates in Jane that all forms of liberation, be it financial, social, religious, or otherwise, all boil down to choice through freedom of will. Jane has it right:

“Women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”.

Works Cited

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