Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre: Blazing a Trail for Strong Women
“Jane Eyre”: Even if you meet love, you still have to maintain your “single power”
I really like this passage:
Some people are very defensive, so they don’t have many friends and love. However, they still adhere to their principles: high walls and huge fortresses, and those who cannot climb over them are passers-by. — — As long as you can turn it over with your heart, it will last a lifetime.
Jane, the heroine of “Jane Eyre”, is such a person.
She has always lived an independent and determined life. She doesn’t approve of many things, but whatever she approves of, she cherishes them in her heart.
And this kind of cherishing has a bottom line. Just like although she loves Rochester deeply, she will not be trapped by love and become Rochester’s dependence.
She will leave and come back, but the reason is just because she wants to, she wants, and she feels it is worth it.
01
Pursue love, but also stay calm and think
Jane has been a very emotional and restrained person since she was a child.
For example, she initially had to make a living under her aunt because her parents and close uncle passed away one after another.
If you live under someone else’s roof, you won’t be welcomed.
Even some of her aunt’s children would bully Jane and treat her like a servant.
It stands to reason that being treated like this by a relative would make a young child feel very hurt.
But Jane didn’t.
On the one hand, it’s because Jane is very transparent. She knows very well that family members are not connected by blood, but because they treat each other sincerely, the relationship between family members can last forever.
And her aunt’s family does not treat Jane as her relatives, and Jane will not treat her aunt’s and her family as her relatives.
This change in mentality also prevents Jane from having too high expectations for her aunt and family.
If you have no expectations, you will naturally not be disappointed. Even if she is physically injured (when she has a conflict with her aunt’s children, Jane is either beaten or punished), Jane’s mind is not hurt.
Whenever she is alone, she can stay peacefully in her own little world and look at everything around her coldly.
And later, when her aunt decided to send her to a missionary school, she could leave without any delay or nostalgia.
On the other hand, Jane’s mentality is very good.
She will not complain about her fate, nor will she wonder why she has such a hard life while her aunt’s children can enjoy happiness.
Jane accepted everything that fate had given her.
She never rejects suffering, but she also cherishes the sweetness that life provides because she has tasted suffering.
Therefore, when Jane met Helen, a classmate who showed kindness to her and was willing to make friends with her at the mission school, she was willing to return the same tenderness.
Even after Helen fell ill, Jane quietly ran to find Helen and stayed with Helen until the last moment of her life, regardless of the risk of infection.
Jane’s emotions are rich, but she uses them sparingly.
Because of this, she didn’t have much nostalgia for the missionary school. After another teacher who was close to her (except Helen, this teacher was the only one who was good to Jane in the missionary school) resigned because of marriage and left. , without hesitation, chose to leave the church school where she had lived for many years and applied for the position of a tutor outside.
The reason is simple.
In Jane’s opinion, if you feel a place is warm, it’s because the people in that place are warm. But if the person who makes you feel warm leaves, you should also look for a new life of your own.
Under such circumstances, Jane also met the most important person in her life — Rochester.
Rochester is Jane’s employer. He is a noble but eccentric man.
Coincidentally, he and Jane were a rare match. The two often chat together. They don’t know what the other person has been through, they just enjoy getting along with each other in the moment.
Rochester once said to Jane:
I don’t want to treat you as someone inferior to me. This means that the only reason I claim to be superior to you is that I am 20 years older than you and have a century more experience than you. I am With this advantage, and only with this, I ask you to do well and chat with me for a while now to relax my mind.
Although Jane never looked down upon herself, the understanding and respect conveyed in Rochester’s words still moved her.
In addition, as the understanding deepens, Jane becomes more and more aware of Rochester’s interesting and warm soul beneath his cold and eccentric appearance.
Jane’s feelings for Rochester are also getting deeper and deeper. She will feel disappointed because Rochester may attract other women, and she will also muster up the courage to express her love to Rochester frankly.
She is lucky and unlucky.
Fortunately, the person she loves loves her back. Moreover, Rochester also proposed to her, and the two promised each other for life.
Unfortunately, on the wedding day, it was revealed that Rochester had a wife before and their marriage had not been dissolved.
Jane was shocked.
Although Jane can understand that Rochester has his own difficulties (Rochester’s first wife has mental problems and violent tendencies, but Rochester did not know about it before the marriage), Jane still cannot accept her lover’s relationship with her without ending the previous relationship. Come together on your own.
Therefore, after struggling, Jane chose not to be dazzled by love and sympathy.
She figured out one thing — she couldn’t accept such feelings, and even if she reluctantly accepted it, she didn’t know how to spend her future.
Rather than suffer long-term pain and let yourself and Rochester suffer deeply in the relationship, it is better to have a short-term pain and quickly withdraw from the relationship, so that both Rochester and you can have more space and time to deal with some problems and figure out some things.
Therefore, Jane understood Rochester’s past choices, but she also made it clear that she could not continue to be with Rochester, and chose to leave without saying goodbye after expressing her feelings.
Jane pursues love and longs for a happy marriage, but she can also maintain rational thinking and figure out what she wants most.
In this way, Jane can quickly find a solution when there is a problem in a relationship, protect herself, and minimize the harm to the other party.
02
Falling in love is not attachment to another person
Jane has always been a very independent person.
She can love, or she can turn around and leave when she feels there is no hope for the future.
After Jane left Rochester, she went to a strange place and became a country teacher. During this period, she also unexpectedly met relatives she had never met and inherited a fortune.
It seems that Jane is rich and has relatives around her, and she is no longer lonely.
There was even a man beside Jane who respected her and was willing to marry her. Although this man and Jane are not in love, this man is a good marriage partner, and his and Jane’s personalities are compatible. If they live together for a long time, life will not be boring.
An ordinary woman would probably accept her fate and choose to marry this man for the rest of her life.
But Jane didn’t want to live in such a muddle. She has encountered love and knows what it feels like to love and be loved. Therefore, she couldn’t bear not being able to be with love for the rest of her life.
Jane rejected this man and the future of continuing to live like this. She chose to return to the place she originally escaped from. She wanted to give herself an explanation.
And when Jane and Rochester reunited, Rochester was not as handsome as before. He was covered in wounds and could no longer see his eyes. The injuries occurred because Rochester’s first wife set fire to their home and took her own life.
Pain is the last mark left on Rochester by his original wife.
This hurts, but it also means that Rochester can finally say goodbye to the past and face the future.
Jane also realized this. She knew that the obstacle between herself and Rochester no longer existed. Therefore, she chooses to rebuild her old relationship with Rochester and spend the rest of her life together.
At the end of the story, the two of them had a child. More love and hope shine into their lives.
03
write at the end
When reading this book, I always felt that Jane was a woman with great “single power”.
This “single power” allows Jane to enjoy the process of pursuing love and the love between two people, while also having the power to decisively return to her own life and live a good life.
Because she knows that although love is important, she cannot lose herself.
Therefore, she will leave when she feels that there is a problem in a relationship and she cannot solve it. She will also come back when she feels that she has the ability to cope with everything and is mentally prepared to bear all the consequences.
And the way she pursues love without being trapped by love is really beautiful.
And because everything she does is what she wants, she has no regrets or entanglements, and can welcome her own, best love in a completely new state.
And after seeing Jane’s story, we can also reflect on ourselves and see if we have enough “single power” in our lives.
This does not mean that you should always be prepared to leave yourself a way out and break up with your lover, but it means that you should always retain the strength and confidence so that you can live well when you live independently.
The future is long, and it is also important to have the power to be single.
I hope you can meet the one you love, love each other to the fullest, and when you need to turn around, embrace yourself and leave gracefully.
