When she becomes adult, she said to Hannah that “ Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.” It seems that Jane does not have bias to poverty anymore. However, as a narration of this story, when she mentioned her hard time of wandering Morton without money, she says she “can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so.” Through this remark of her, it can been seen that she actually hate poverty. Based on this reason, Bonvenuto says “Jane is in no position to lecture Hannah about her duty to the poor” (621) In other words, Jane still has bias to poverty.
However, it can not say the Jane still have bias to poverty only because the memory of poverty is so hard for her that she does not want to mention. In addition, she says " an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so." she seems to blame poverty through this remark but she does not say or imply that she agrees this idea. She just says what other people would think not denies poverty. I want to prove this thesis in my paper.
Reference
Bonvenuto, Richard. “The Child of Nature, the Child
of Grace, the Unresolved Conflict of Jane Eyre”, ELH, 39: 4 (Dec.,
1972): 620-638
1 comment:
I like your ideas here very much, and I agree that she is simply describing the way the world looks at beggars, not expressing her own judgement.
The Victorian idea of children was rather that they were small adults, with not much recognition that they had a different way of thinking about the world. However, Bronte does give some insights into the way a child's mind works. I feel this especially when she tells Brocklehurst that to avoid going to hell she must "keep in good health and not die". In some ways, her comment about poverty shows a child's thinking too. The adult Jane faces it readily enough when she feels she has no choice.
In a sense, I feel Jane is casting herself on God's mercy. Neither Jane nor Bronte herself are especially religious. Bronte writes, in one of her poems,
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is–"Leave the heart that now I bear
And give me liberty."
The "if I pray" suggests that she doesn't often pray, and the content of the prayer is not really focused on God. Even so, I feel that Jane is, in a sense, challenging God to show her the way forward in her life. She throws herself on the mercy of fate, something beyond rich and poor, prepared for death if that is what comes, but ready to make use of positive chances if these come her way.
Whether we call it God or fate, it seems she gives up trying to choose or direct her life, and puts herself in the hands of something greater. To me it shows that there are things she cares more about than poverty or wealth, which is also suggested by her reaction to finding out that she has inherited money from "Uncle John", who is the same uncle to St. John and Diana and Mary. She cares more about the fact that this means they are cousins than about the fact that now she is rich, and indeed she gives three quarters of her wealth away to her new-found cousins.
So, yes, this is an interesting topic and I like the way you are approaching it so far.
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