Aug 2021- Jane Eyre Part 3

[Charlene]

Discussion for Part 3 of Jane Eyre. Part 3 is chapters 28 through 38.

Please realize that if you haven't completely read part 3 there may be spoilers.

[Quinn Smells Books]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the religious models in this part of the book? I feel like I need more context to understand it 100%, but I think St John's extremism/absolutism (for lack of a better word, I don't mean it negatively) is an interesting contrast with Jane's religion. Jane doesn't take religion less seriously than St John; she just thinks of it differently. I think a lot of modern people would dismiss a person like St John, finding his extremism and his moral arrogance (i.e. presuming he knows exactly what's best for Jane's - and everyone's - souls) distasteful, but it doesn't bother Jane; even when she disagrees with him, she respects that in a certain way, religion doesn't have space for tolerance of other points of view.
I think Jane needs to strike a balance - to stay with a married Rochester would be to sell her soul for love, but to
marry St John would be to forget that love is divine. I am specifically *not* saying that the St John route would be to sell love for her soul, because Jane would definitely do that (and did) if she thought it was right; she doesn't believe in making compromises on religion, but she believes that marrying without love would be religiously problematic. Again, Jane makes all her decisions based on what she considers moral and Christian; her disagreement with St John is not about religion's place in life, but rather the content of what religion expects. (I am an observant Jew, and the book's attitude toward religion reminds me of a quote from Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein: "Religion is either everything or it is nothing.")
The contrast between St John and Jane is evocative to me of the paradigms of Enjolras and Marius in Les Miserables. Enjolras, like St John, is an idealistic ideal (excuse the clunky language) (though his idealism is not religious). He is devoted to his ideology so completely that he transcends his own subjectivity and personal desires (although St John, Jane observes, does have certain moral blind spots and weaknesses that he is unaware of). In contrast, Marius, while still idealistic and a "good" person, represents the blending of those universal aspirations and his personal concerns and loves.
St John and Enjolras are the kinds of characters I was consumed by as a teenager, enamoured with ideas of Nietzchean Apollonianism (as I understood it) and total transcendence of the self. As I reencounter those characters now (just a little older), they're interesting studies in the possibility of something a little more realistic that doesn't compromise integrity.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Oooh, I think you are a far more literary reader than I, Quinn.

What struck me the most was St John was grooming Jane. This period was the nearest that Jane came to losing her sense of self. Through every other period Jane was true to herself.

To these modern eyes, St John was a very dangerous man.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

& I have just read Michael Mason's introduction.

I agree with him that this is book that is often misremembered. I have no memory of the Rivers family at all.

[Nanette]

Interesting that St. John gets the last word in the novel.