The Health Police are hot on my trail.
After finally admitting defeat and running out of ways in which to ignore the pain in my back I swallowed my paranoia and went to the doctor. My snivelling hobble obviously excited some sort of sympathy with the receptionist who provided me with an appointment with an English speaking doctor in just over an hour from the time of my request!
I was given a through grilling in Spanish (English was only allowed when total incomprehension had been achieved and then only momentarily to allow the Spanish to continue) and eventually provided with yet more pills as the doctor has decided that the pain is muscular and not the grinding of bone on bone at the hip joint as I had thought. The pills have ten days to work and prove him right because I do not think that I can force any more into the little daily sections that I gulp down each day!
I have spent some time (time he could better use, you might think) wondering about the ending of ‘Jane Eyre.’
After finally admitting defeat and running out of ways in which to ignore the pain in my back I swallowed my paranoia and went to the doctor. My snivelling hobble obviously excited some sort of sympathy with the receptionist who provided me with an appointment with an English speaking doctor in just over an hour from the time of my request!
I was given a through grilling in Spanish (English was only allowed when total incomprehension had been achieved and then only momentarily to allow the Spanish to continue) and eventually provided with yet more pills as the doctor has decided that the pain is muscular and not the grinding of bone on bone at the hip joint as I had thought. The pills have ten days to work and prove him right because I do not think that I can force any more into the little daily sections that I gulp down each day!
I have spent some time (time he could better use, you might think) wondering about the ending of ‘Jane Eyre.’
Why does Bronte choose to end this novel with a description of St. John Rivers?
She does tie up loose ends in a most satisfactory (or irritating, take your choice) way after her final triumphant chapter opening, “Reader I married him.” It is unambiguous in its satisfaction as far as Jane is concerned: her happiness is complete and those around her participate in the general pleasure of comfortable lives - Rochester even gets his sight back so that he is able to see his new child! Jane is rich, secure, loved, admired, happy and has a growing family. So why end the novel with St. John?
Is he the one that got away?
The Reed Family have been dispatched to nunneries, Roman Catholicism, the grave and unsatisfactory marriage. Good servants have found family happiness. Brocklehurst has been contained and his vicious influence mitigated. Jane’s world is placid, ordered and useful with only St. John being a continuing nagging irritation daily nearing his martyr’s crown, a continent away from Jane’s money and impervious to her influence. He is untouchable in his single minded determination and ambition with the sort of terrifying strength that can recognize others only as pale reflections of himself.
To me St. John is a combination of all the traits of the negative and positive characters we have seen throughout the novel. The inflexibility of Mrs Reed; the beauty of Georgiana; the religious inhumanity of Eliza Reed; the cruelty of John Reed; the use of religion as a weapon of Mr Brocklehurst; the passion of Helen Burns; the iconic surety of Miss Temple and so on. None of the parallels are strict, but elements of those characters exist in St. John – Jane’s greatest temptation.
His offer of marriage and the missionary life to Jane is the ultimate presentation of the ‘useful’ – a key concept in Jane’s ethos. St. John offers service to people with devotion to God within a family: surely an irresistible way of life for Jane whose own life has been a search for family, a desire to be useful and a painful working out of her religious motivations. It takes the extraordinary to ‘save’ her – the disembodied voice of Rochester crying out when she is most vulnerable to the inexorable moral blandishments of St. John. Jane refuses St. John’s offer and seeks Rochester.
Jane overcomes everything in her way personally or the problems which hinder her progress are eliminated for her. Death removes Mrs Reed and Mrs Rochester
To me St. John is a combination of all the traits of the negative and positive characters we have seen throughout the novel. The inflexibility of Mrs Reed; the beauty of Georgiana; the religious inhumanity of Eliza Reed; the cruelty of John Reed; the use of religion as a weapon of Mr Brocklehurst; the passion of Helen Burns; the iconic surety of Miss Temple and so on. None of the parallels are strict, but elements of those characters exist in St. John – Jane’s greatest temptation.
His offer of marriage and the missionary life to Jane is the ultimate presentation of the ‘useful’ – a key concept in Jane’s ethos. St. John offers service to people with devotion to God within a family: surely an irresistible way of life for Jane whose own life has been a search for family, a desire to be useful and a painful working out of her religious motivations. It takes the extraordinary to ‘save’ her – the disembodied voice of Rochester crying out when she is most vulnerable to the inexorable moral blandishments of St. John. Jane refuses St. John’s offer and seeks Rochester.
Jane overcomes everything in her way personally or the problems which hinder her progress are eliminated for her. Death removes Mrs Reed and Mrs Rochester
and perhaps St. John is mentioned last because he is still alive. With his death Jane will finally be living the antithesis of the opening of the novel: in control with no moral or personal threats left.
Finally the deceptive strength ironically mocked by her metaphorically insubstantial surname and the implied dismissal of her identity and personal attraction by her common first name will be both shown to be no indication of Jane’s real character. The novel is called ‘Jane Eyre’ because she dominates the book from the beginning to the end and she can allow St. John the last word because it is an illusion and she will ultimately be the ‘last one standing!’
What a good melodramatic read it is!
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