Obstacles And Shortcomings In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

As the main protagonist of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane has her fill of obstacles and shortcomings. Another female character, arguably the main antagonist, Bertha Mason, also has her own hardships and hinderances. However, the way that these two women deal with their problems make them polar opposites. Jane chooses to flee from any bumps in her life, while Bertha is actively struggling against her confinement and dies a fiery death in doing so. If the duality of these women in Jane Eyre is carefully dissected, Jane appears as a slave to societal norms; while Bertha died a freed woman. Their endings were not reflective of the difficulties both character had to traverse. In “‘Before I was Set Free’: The Creole Wife in Jane Eyre and Wide

At first, she strays from her job as a governess and falls in love with her employer, a man of higher status and twice her age. Her purity and innocence tempts Mr. Rochester, and both reciprocate their love. However, Mr. Rochester knowingly already has a wife: someone who he keeps locked away from society, but not under the eyes of God. Therefore, Jane decides to wait for her to die before she swoops in to marry Mr. Rochester. Jane’s thought process is underhanded and their relationship is flawed. Jane, after realizing Mr. Rochester has the paid the price of an arm and his sight for marrying Bertha, believes that she is now on equal footings with him. Coincidentally, he would later gain back his sight and a child boy, the classical “and they lived happy ever after”. However, this ending does not deem fit for Jane, who solves her problems by running away. Countless of times would she run away and return years later to see her problem “magically” resolved. With the example of Mrs. Reed, she is never mentioned after Jane moves to a boarding school and grows up. Her rapid decline in health and eventual death drops a bombshell when it was suddenly announced. Jane maintains an indifferent stance towards her aunt’s death, possibly suggesting her mental growth or a lack of empathy. However, it is the latter because Jane exhibits no growth throughout the novel as she continues to run away from her problems with the additional examples

Based on a local’s perspective, the fire that burned down Thornfield and took Mr. Rochester’s arm and sight was the actions of “a lady, - a – a lunatic … Poor Mr. Edward!” (Bronte, 434-436). The fire, however, could be seen as a cleansing of all the years of imprisonment that shackled Bertha. She was finally able to extract her long awaited revenge. “There is also a norm of negative reciprocity, thought to be equally universal and influential, that compels people to return harm for harm. Reciprocity norms are believed to be cross-culturally universal features of humans’ moral sensibilities”. The action of sacrificing herself to harm Mr. Rochester is justifiable. Caged up like an animal for countless of years in solitude by her own husband, it is within animalistic nature to lash back. As her last act of vengeance, she tries to kill all the inhabitants of the household that imprisoned her. However, with her death, Mr. Rochester is now available to marry Jane. Bertha indubitably suffered a lot in her life, it does not seem fair that Jane is able to live a carefree life after her