More about Jane

I'm at the part where St. John has proposed marriage to Jane, and I am utterly appalled. I thought Mr. Brocklehurst was the perfect example of the worst kind of false Christian, but he is just stupid and bad in a low sort of way. St. John is diabolical: a Pharisee of the highest order. Externally, a religiously and ethically perfect man, but completely devoid of the Love of Christ (or any other kind of love, for that matter), and guilty of an astounding degree of the absolute worst sin there is: spiritual pride. Of course, Jane is too much of a real Christian to see it: she judges him mercifully, with the charity and humility which marks her as the true saint. Probably the best use of the "unreliable narrator" literary device I've ever seen: better even than Huckleberry Finn's struggle between the false morality which has been implanted in him by bad religion and the true morality which God has placed in his heart.

I shudder at the way he invokes "the will of God" to try and force her into acquiescence: equating his own will to God's, in effect. The sheer arrogance is unbelievable. It would be one thing to say to her, "I believe that I have discerned that this is God's will for us: will you consider and pray about it?" But it is something else entirely, what he does. Worse than Rochester's selfish deception. Worse than Farmer Boldwood's use of guilt. The little smug, self-righteous comments and notes: "I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak." If I were standing near him in real life, I would step back to avoid the lighting bolt.

I thought at one point, when Jane was accusing herself of idolatry regarding Rochester, that the story was going to take a turn to that very heartless Calvinism which St. John represents: that Jane was going to decide that all passion was evil, and marry him, "recognizing" that "real Christian love" was that detached, rational, cold benevolence which denies all human feeling, all enjoyment of anything in this world, including affection and attachment, as things "of this world" and therefore to be shunned. But her answer to his hideous proposal and his monstrous manipulation is even better, in my mind, than her choice to flee from Rochester.

Bronte has, so far, the best grasp of what it means to truly be a Christian that I have seen in an author since Victor Hugo. I especially love how God is an active, though mysterious, presence in her life: the dreams, the lightning bolt hitting the tree, the voice of Rochester calling out to her in her moment of weakness. She's off to look for him right now, and I'm hoping that she's going to find him and, through her obedience and act of sacrifice in giving him up, that God is going to somehow have worked things out so that they now can be together: that Rochester will have found both freedom and true repentance, so that the union which would once have been sinful will now be blessed. Don't tell me whether I'm right.

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." -- Matt 16:25

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
-- Unknown