Sunday, January 11, 2015

Who teaches Jane more in Jane Eyre? Is it the minor characters or St. John and Rochester?

This is a very interesting question to consider, as in a
sense, nearly all of the characters that feature in Jane's life and teach her valuable
lessons lie on either side of a spectrum of two extremes between which Jane oscillates
during the course of the novel, only by its end managing to attain a healthy tension
between these two states. It is interesting that these two extremes are most clearly and
succinctly described in Chapter Twenty-One, when Jane returns to Gateshead to say
farewell to Mrs. Reed. Note how she describes her two cousins, Georgiana and
Eliza:



True,
generous feeling is made small account of by some; but here were two natures rendered,
the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling
without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too
bitter and husky a morsel for human
deglutition.



Thus we can see
that Georgiana represents an excess of "feeling without judgement," but Eliza represents
an excess of "judgement without feeling." Both of these two classifications can be
helpfully used to sort through the major characters of this novel, with their extremes
being found in Rochester, who represents "feeling without judgement," as is shown by the
way that so much imagery pertaining to fire and passion are related to him, and St. John
Rivers, who represents "judgement without feeling," and the way that ice and snow and
white are related to his character exemplifies this.


Thus
in response to your question, it is correct to say that Jane "learns more" from St. John
Rivers and Rochester, but these lessons are ones that are repeated throughout the novel
through the different characters that Jane meets and talks with.

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