Chapter XXIX
While three days and nights pass, Jane continues in a stupor, confined to a bed in the Rivers’ household. We learn of her impressions of the family, the sisters being warm and inviting, but their brother St John, displays a different character. His reserve, quick judgements, distrust and attention to outward appearance are readily obvious. When feeling a little better, Jane makes her way to the kitchen, where she meets Hannah. All Hannah’s prejudices against Jane are aired and cleared, encouraged by Jane’s firm resolution and straightforward honesty. They become fast friends. At tea with St John and his sisters, he attempts to learn more about Jane, while she examines him. His features are described as very handsome and harmonious, but underneath she senses a negative energy about him.
“….. (he) scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager …….
Had he been a statue instead of a man, he could not have been easier…..”
Jane gives an alias of Elliot, tells them about Lowood school but refuses to reveal anything about Thornfield Hall or the happenings there. St. John relents in his questioning, promising to find her employment.
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The Kitchenmaid (1712)
Guiseppe Maria Crespi
source Wikiart |
Chapter XXX
Jane begins to develop an intimacy with Diana and Mary, but with St John any deeper connection seems impossible and she has many observations why this is so, including his frequent absences from home, his reserved nature, his lack of interaction with nature, his uncommunicativeness and his lack of peace.
“But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist ……”
Yet while Jane criticizes her benefactor, she also sees parallels in their situations:
“….I was sure St John Rivers — pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was — had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than had I, with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost Elysium — regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannized over me ruthlessly.”
Finally she is offered employment by St John as a schoolteacher at a girls’ school he established for the poor in the village of Morton. As the sisters must make their own way in the world since their father’s death and are soon to leave for B—-, Jane accepts. The death of the Rivers’ uncle for a moment gives them new hope for their prospects but his mean spirit leaves them little in his will and they all leave for their respective posts. Jane’s new life begins.
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A Dame’s School (1845)
Thomas George Webster
source ArtUK |
Chapter XXXI
Jane’s new home is a little cottage in Morton, set aside for the schoolteacher. As she takes up her new task, she thinks of her old life and begins to come to terms with her decision to leave Thornfield, realizing that if she had succumbed to her sentiments and passions, her inner soul would have been damaged, and for a short time of bliss, she would have paid with a lifetime of regret.
St John visits one day and while revealing his past struggles and his plans for his future, a girl appears, causing him to blanch. She is more beautiful than description, and while she attempts to establish an intimacy with St John, he is rather implacable and refuses her invitation to see her father. It is the heiress. Rosamund Oliver of Vale Hall, but St John seems impervious to her charms. Jane is intrigued by the exchange.
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The Cottage Door (1825)
William Collins
source Wikiart |
Initially I wasn’t really looking forward to this part of the book, but I’m finding it compelling this time. I’m quite loving the contrast between St John and Rochester, and appearance and character. Rochester’s looks are not outwardly pleasing and his behaviour is not always what would be considered socially pleasing, yet Jane senses that there is a hidden part of his nature that is constant and earnest and has great depth, only it has been corrupted by his life circumstances. With St John, however, although he is pleasing to look at, and his behaviour is outwardly acceptable, there is a hardness and lack of empathy to him, that does not bode well for any sort of formed intimacy or deep relationship.
I also like how Jane, while seeing faults in others, also sees them in herself. While she recognizes that St John has not found peace in his faith or life, she knows that she struggles in this area too and why.
Since
Tom’s comments in my last post about seeing Jane as an unreliable narrator, I have been trying to, but failing miserably.
She simply seems too insightful and too willing to criticize herself for her own failings to be unreliable, or at least from the view of a conscious authorial unreliability. I’ll keep trying though.
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I agree, Jane Eyre is insightful as a narrator gets.
My idea is that Mrs. Rochester is playing a game with a specific reader. This is an idea I picked up from Villette, actually, where the narrator, who is as sharp as Eyre, spends a fair amount of time messing around with – teasing – her reader(s). It eventually occurred to me that the idea solves certain problems in Jane Eyre, too. The Rochester-Jane relationship is also full of teasing – outright pranks, even.
No teasing in the St. John-Jane relationship, though.
I agree with you Cleo. I think considering Eyre as an unreliable narrator is reading too much into the story.
I know that James made us of this ploy, Dostoevsky did in his 1st person narratives, and it has been debated whether Emily Bronte didn't use it with Nellie as an unreliable narrator but I don't see it with either of the Brontes.
Because when the author is posing a narrator as possibly unreliable they give certain clues that allow the reader to perceive the bias.
While it is true that both Nellie and Jane have obvious biases, the genius in the Bronte sisters is that they allow the audience to perceive events truthfully while also comprehending the bias.
Anyway, that's my two cents worth.
The issue here isn't "bias," though. There are different kinds of unreliable narrators. Some are crazy, some are missing what is going on around them, some are deceitful. Lucy Snowe is sane and knows exactly what is going on but is deliberately messing with her reader(s). She gives lots of clues.
I should write this idea up someday. Find out exactly how crazy it looks. Maybe it works better for Villette than Jane Eyre. Until then, never mind. Forget I said anything.
Ahhhh, okay, it's becoming a little clearer. Do you mean Mrs. Rochester, the crazy women, or Jane at the end when she becomes Mrs. Rochester?
I completely agree with you with regard to Villette. I have to admit it drove me crazy because the feeling wasn't as if it were all in fun, or even to communicate an important idea, but it seemed simply to goad or lash out. It actually made me rather uncomfortable and irritated.
I'm reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov now and I'm having trouble following it even without a possible unreliable narrator! :-Z I've heard the Nellie-as-an-unreliable-narrator theory too, but I never made a decision one way or the other after reading WH. I tend to like to think people are being truthful even if that truth is from their POV. That said, I haven't explored the unreliable narrator theory enough yet and I'm kind of glad that Tom has got me thinking ….
Oh no! Please keep expanding your theory. I feel that I'm lacking the imagination at the moment to go there perhaps, but I'm slowly coming along. I do wish that you'd write up about it. I can clearly see in Villette how Brontë plays with her readers. Here was what I mentioned in my review:
" I also was irritated with her penchant to play with the reader. She seemed to be saying, "oh, so you'd like to see this scenario play out? Well, too bad, I'm deliberately going to give you this." Quite frankly, I finished feeling rather offended, as if someone had just been rude or discourteous. An excuse for her approach may be found in the successive deaths of three members of her family within eight short months, five years before Villette was published, and there is some suggestion that Brönte was struggling with depression. "
I mean Jane, the second Mrs. Rochester.
"uncomfortable and irritated" – yes!
The fairy tale elements are what really make me wonder. Did a will o' the wisp lead Jane across the moors to her unknown cousins, or is that a story she tells to a particular reader, for example the one who regularly teases her by calling her an elf?
If – if – this is going on, Jane is much less aggressive than Lucy. Your review gets at that well.
Ah, I see ….. it's all becoming clear ….. Very intriguing. I'm going to think some more …. 🙂
Enjoyed this post…I so want to re-read it now! I was pretty young when I read JE, and some of these nuanced passages went over my head. Like the significance of Rosamund Oliver – it seems like St John fell for her but suppressed his feelings. So Jane can clearly see he is capable of love or attraction, but obviously he doesn't feel that way about Jane; he only talks about her in the most disconnected, utilitarian terms. That's a red flag for sure.
I am beginning to think about Jane and her narrative. Though i agree with you that she is very insightful and I believe intuitive as well. The dependency on her as a narrator, that is indeed a very interesting thought. I kind of always assumed that as a given. I need to think through this some more!
Rosamond puts St John in a very curious position as far as a character goes. On one hand, he denies his own nature (his love for her) to follow an ideal (I don't think his missionary goal was the only way to show his devotion to God), yet it's almost as if he recognizes his own faults and limitations and refuses to inflict an unhappy marriage upon himself and her. Yet, you're right, he doesn't seem to have the same concern for Jane. He's weird …. 😉
I don't think (yet) that there is anything unusual about her narrative but it does help to think of what Rochester would think when he read it. Does she make things appear in a certain light because of it? I don't think so (yet) but it's an interesting exercise.