"The suggestion was sensible; and yet I could not force myself to act on it."
~Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, page 470
I think Jane had to go back to Thornfield in the end. She needed the closure--as did the reader. Though I half expected her to marry Rochester in the end, I did have my doubts. I think, though, that that was the only way to end it--the only way that wouldn't be overly bittersweet, at least. Jane couldn't marry St. John. It would have been a loveless marriage. Neither would have been truly happy. Jane would not have been fully happy living on her own, even though she was fully prepared to do that. Only by marrying her one true love could she be happy.
Comments (2)
I think the conflict between happiness and sense is something that Jane struggled with throughout the entire story.
She wanted to marry and be happy, but she also was too proud to marry when it wouldn't fit into the standards she had set for herself with concern to propriety.
Posted by Diana Geleskie | October 17, 2007 11:29 AM
Posted on October 17, 2007 11:29
Jane had been miserable her entire life, up until that night she and Mr Rochester had that talk. He capitvated her mind. Jane deserved at least some happiness after suffering her entire life. But I believe the book had to end the way it did.Maybe Jane left because she was mad at Rochester for hiding the fact that he was already married (albeit to a deranged lunatic) or the fact that she did not want to become a mistress (with a firm christian background, I don't believe Jane would settle for anything less than marriage). However, her love for Rochester won out in the end. Jane never loved Rochester for his looks (this was made clear in the very beginning of the book), so her feelings did not change when she saw what had happened to him.
Posted by DaniellaChoynowski | October 18, 2007 10:30 AM
Posted on October 18, 2007 10:30