Jane Eyre's Religious Themes and Contexts

Religious Belief in Jane Eyre In Jane Eyre Bront often juxtaposes Jane with characters who espouse strikingly different religious beliefs. Where Jane is seen as searching and questioning, these other characters hold strongly to one form or another of Evangelical protestantism, the religion that Helen Burns espouses. The Evangelicals "stressed the reality of the 'inner life,' insisted on the total depravity of humanity (a consequence of the Fall) and on the importance of the individual's personal relationship with God and Savior." On her deathbed Helen speaks with Jane about both her depravity and her deep affinity with God. "By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault." But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?" "I believe; I have faith: I am going to God." "Where is God? What is God?" My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what he created. I rely implicitly on his power, and confide wholly in his goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to him, reveal him to me." "You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven; and that our souls can get to it when die?" Here Bront also undermines Helen's absolute and self-abnegating religious beliefs. Jane's questions may not plant any seeds of doubt within Helen, but the reader would be hard-pressed to miss her point. Helen seek happiness in Heaven; Jane is determined to find hers here on Earth.

Christian Service and Female Servitude in Jane Eyre In Bronte's Jane Eyre a Victorian woman's sense of Christian duty also restricts the heroine. Jane has only known of a life serving others, and for a time, the power of this identity has kept freedom a secret from her. Jane suffocates under the responsibilities of her servitude and perceives that society, founded on God, obstructs her unlimited possibilities and path towards heroism. God will

not allow her the sweet bliss of liberty and rather leaves her unlimited in her mobility within the realm of servitude. Aware of her closed-off ring of freedom, she "frames a humbler supplication" and asks for at least a new servitude. Anything more 'sounds too sweet" and "is of no use wanting. Idolatry in "Hudson's Statue" and Jane Eyre Bront warns her readers against idolatry. Bronte stresses the danger of Jane idolizing Rochester. However, whereas purely religious motives drive Bronte's interest in this theme of idolatry, In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bront also warns man of falling away from God by worshipping false idols. However, Bront's purpose lies simply in promoting genuine Christianity in an age in danger of losing sight of God. Bront had not abandoned her faith in God, does not use Christianity as a means to an end, be it political or otherwise. In Chapter XXV, Jane realizes that "my future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for his creature: of whom I had made an idol" (241). Jane has made an idol of Rochester. Bront, then, also condemns idolatry; after Jane realizes her sin of idolizing man, she knows it is her duty as a faithful Christian to leave Rochester, so that she can again bask in the light of God. After removing her idol Rochester from obstruction of God, Jane would be able to see the Truth. A biblical context may help the reader understand Bront's point of view in Jane Eyre. In Exodus 20:vs. 2-5 of the Bible, God decrees the Ten Commandments, in which he declares "I am the Lord your God . . . You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I . . . am the Lord your God. Bront's faith in the Bible and in God motivated her, then, as she wrote of Jane's struggles with idolatry. To emphasize Jane's mistake of idolizing Rochester further, Bront uses the point-ofview and concludes Chapter XXV from the point of view of an older, wiser Jane reflecting back on her young foolishness. Reminiscing on her past, she clearly realizes her unhealthy obsession with Rochester. The future Jane realizes that "in those days" she could not see God for her idol. No longer in the midst of those days, Jane receives authority to objectively mull over actual circumstances without the chaos and whirl of emotions. Through this point of view, Bront herself speaks to the readers and warns of idolatry. This passage also reveals the urgent danger in which Jane has unknowingly involved herself.

The Biblical characters and the Book of Homilies in Jane Eyre

The characters described by Jane Eyre and two of the locations of the novel Lowood and the hamlet of Whitcross are closely connected to a section of the Prayer Book known as the Book of Homilies, a set of notes of advice to be read to the congregation at "convenient times" throughout the year. Amongst these various ordinances is the appropriate apparel and appearance of "modesty". Jane clearly expresses her distrust of ostentation. The Lowood Institute is described as "Assuredly pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another matter. It was in fact a cradle of fog and fog bound pestilence" [IIIp.393-394]. When Jane enters Whitcross, is a "still, hot, perfect day" and the hamlet is described in pleasant terms, but the villagers prove to have hearts as hard as flint [I.89]. The two people who Jane cares for most, Miss Temple at Lowood and Rochester, are described in far different terms than the Blanch Ingram's and Rosamund Olivers of the world. Miss Temple is described as having "refined features" [I.57]. Rochester has a face "more remarkable for character than beauty...his grim mouth, chin and jaw - yes all three were very grim, and no mistake" [III.365]. Rochester asks Jane, "do you think me handsome?" The instant answer is "No Sir" [I.149]. The man that Jane rejected, St. John Rivers, looked like a Greek God, but was without love. Passion he had only for his missionary work, not for Jane [III.386].