Jane Eyre And Love

7 Pages 1768 Words

Quest for Love



If others don’t love me, I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest,—(Brontë,58-59)

These powerful words come from the lips of ten year-old Jane Eyre. Throughout the novel Jane is searching for love: the need to be loved and love she can show to someone else, of the opposite sex, whom she truly loves. There is a problem lying in this simple plan though: Jane keeps running from her possible chances of marriage. This resistance that Jane displays towards marriage is foreshadowed about a third of the way through the novel by a simple game of charades. The answers to two charades in particular are of certain interest: bride and bridewell. These two unsuspecting answers give the reader a subtle warning of what is to come in the future and how Jane’s life will keep unfolding.
Jane’s search for love is obvious to the reader from the first page of the novel. We are first introduced to Jane while she is a little girl living with her aunt, Mrs. Reed., at Gateshead Hall. While at Gateshead Jane is subjected to many things by her so called family and love is definitely not one of them. She is beaten, isolated from the rest of the household, and in a very memorable scene locked in a room for a night. Jane’s anger is finally released upon her aunt one night before Jane is sent to school. Jane unleashes a slew of words towards the woman that eventually makes her leave and Jane is left feeling triumphant. However, during this diatribe Jane lets her aunt know she truly feels: “You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity”(Brontë, 3...