With twenty-one thousand years of history, Christianity has spread to become the largest religion in the world providing hope and guidance to billions of people. In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte illustrates the personal journey the titular character goes on while maturing both physically and spiritually as she finds what God and Christianity mean to her. As she transitions from a student at the charity school Lowood, to governess and wife, Jane encounters several religious figures that represent the flaws the Bronte sees in traditional interpretations of religion. Jane Eyre rejects the conventional Victorian philosophies of Helen Burns, Brocklehurst, and St John to form her personal faith and religious identity.
Jane’s first friend,
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His complete dedication to Christianity causes him to reject his lover “[W]hile I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly––with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating––I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife” (350). St John and Rosamond clearly have the foundation for a good relationship in place, but St John sacrifices that relationship in order to pursue his missionary work wholeheartedly. Love would distract him from practicing his faith, as he believes that strong emotions would obstruct his religious goals. As Jane gains a deeper understanding of St John and his belief system, she begins to see a disconnect in their interpretations of Christianity, she “prayed in my way- a different way to St John 's, but effective in its own fashion. (358)”. St John fails to see that other religious perspectives can exist and also be true to Christianity as well. He lacks the an actual interest in the people he is supposed to be helping with his missionary work, viewing it as warfare instead of spreading God’s love. Similarly, instead of asking Jane to be his wife, St John tries to recruit her to his cause as a tool or weapon he will