Irony Becomes Her

Jane Eyre VII: "Which is better?"

I'm breaking out of a chronological approach to Jane Eyre for the sake of thematic relation to my last JE post (and it's another long one, I'm afraid). I will perhaps go backward for the next one.

Breaking completely with Mr. Rochester, Jane sets out alone and without any means of supporting herself. I join her here as she settles into her next employment after a period of impoverished wandering. She has been assigned a very modest schoolhouse, dwelling, and salary.

Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must reply -- No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt -- yes, idiot that I am -- I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong -- that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.

Meantime, let me ask myself one question -- Which is better? -- To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort -- no struggle; -- but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time -- for he would -- oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me -- no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace -- for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me -- it is what no man besides will ever be. -- But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles -- fevered with delusive bliss one hour -- suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next -- or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains -- "The air was mild, the dew was balm."

While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long weeping -- and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal fury -- consequences of my departure -- which might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton.

...

I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existence -- after a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone -- I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy -- dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him--the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day.

Perhaps the reason I haven't been able to make any full Jane Eyre converts out of those who don't at first like the book is that personalities vary. In Jane, I find a mirror image, albeit fictional, which likely not many find; and her throes of passionate struggle in the night are counterpart to similar wrestling matches I have undertaken throughout my life and especially in this year of crisis. But I cannot assume that everyone feels the same, nor that they should. All I can offer is what I know firsthand.

One cannot sidestep Jane's central question: Which is better? To give in to a strong, emotional inclination or to exert will over feeling because of a belief in the unseen and unfelt? Indeed, Jane doesn't sidestep the question. She cannot. She has no choice but to contend for her soul with the warring forces at work in her emotions.

I appreciate that she cannot always find "virtue" to be its own reward. She has numerous moments of regret that she has done the "right" thing -- don't we all? Have we all not had nauseating moments of doubt that we have deceived ourselves about what really was right? We don't reject it as wrong either, but we abhor our weakness and inadequacy in being unable to be confident either way. Thus, the nighttime "convulsion of despair."

Yet, "By nine o'clock the next morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day." And, in spite of the "sunshine" of approval in which I now sit, I am fully, sometimes painfully, aware that it is only in a grace from outside and above myself that I can do the duties of the day. I deflect the applause of others to the only One who can and does keep me going -- not because I am so wonderfully humble but because I could not otherwise live with myself. Strange practicality that, eh?

Lately I've been winning battles left and right/ But even winners can get wounded in the fight/ People say that I'm amazing/ Strong beyond my years/ But they don't see inside of me/ I'm hiding all the tears

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down/ They don't know who picks me up when no one is around/ I drop my sword and cry for just a while/ 'Cause deep inside this armor/ The warrior is a child

Unafraid because His armor is the best/ But even soldiers need a quiet place to rest/ People say that I'm amazing/ Never face retreat/ But they don't see the enemies/ That lay me at His feet

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down/ They don't know who picks me up when no one is around/ I drop my sword and look up for a smile/ 'Cause deep inside this armor/ The warrior is a child

--Twila Paris, "The Warrior is a Child"

Labels: Jane Eyre

posted by Lynn @ 10:35 AM