Jane Eyre
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If Bertha had still been alive
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Sandy
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Sep 11, 2015 07:50PM

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The question then would be, if St. John asked her again, whether she might not sign on for India after all. She'd have enough money so that she could take home leave every few years when the subcontinent got to be too much.

Had Bertha survived, I have to say that I still don't believe Jane would have turned her back on Rochester again (and especially not in the pitiful condition he was left in). Her returning at all is testament to that, I would say. She could've gone off with St. John just as swiftly and forgotten all about Rochester and Thornfield Hall, but she longed to return, and not merely because she thought it would be a showing of good manners to. The longing was hers completely. She regarded Rochester as a lover.

Yes, now that I think about how closely Jane adhered to religious morale, you're right. She would have insisted as she had before that it was wrong. Rochester, then, would have sent her away most likely, as I do remember him saying something about not wanting a nurse or a companion who pitied him.

From chapter 35: ...I read in gilt letters, “The Rochester Arms.”
My heart leapt up: I was already on my master’s very lands. It fell again: the thought struck it:—
“Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, who besides
him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost your labour—you had
better go no farther,” urged the monitor. “Ask information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek: they can solve your doubts at once.
Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home.”
The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was
to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before me—the very fields through which I had hurried,
blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved
to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the first view of the well-known woods!
With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened. Another field
crossed—a lane threaded—and there were the courtyard walls—the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. “My first view of it shall be in
front,” I determined, “where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my master’s very window: perhaps he will
be standing at it—he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him!—but a moment! Surely, in
that case, I should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell—I am not certain. And if I did—what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be
hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the
tideless sea of the south.”
...
Hear an illustration, reader.
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass,
careful to make no sound; he pauses—fancying she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends
above her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty—warm, and blooming, and lovely, in
rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not,
a moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes,
because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter—by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.
~~~~~~~~~
I omitted bits that seemed irrelevant to the question. It seems to me there is cause for both viewpoints from these passages. I tend to believe she would've tried to help him had Bertha still been alive, help him to live a better life but she wouldn't be intimate with him. There are two scenarios, Bertha alive without setting the fire and Rochester not impaired and Bertha alive and Rochester impaired in trying to save her and that second scenario complicates the issue as he did say he didn't want a nursemaid out of pity yet that never would've been how Jane saw him.

So yes she still would have gone back to Rochester



Fortunately, Bertha was gone, and Jane was able to have the life she wanted with Rochester.
Jane would never have gone with St John, she had no feelings for him or his mission.
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