Jane Eyre: The Strange Ending

Strangely, the ending of Jane Eyre is not about Jane herself or her marriage with Rochester. Brontë describes in the last chapter of the book the happy marriage of Jane and Mr. Rochester and how they had a children and Mr. Rochester recovered his sight in one eye. However, Brontë ended the novel by a letter sent from St. John in India to Jane in which he declares a premonition of his death after he has done his life mission as a missionary in India. Brontë used words from Revelation 22:20 as the last paragraph in the book: “'My Master,' he says, 'has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly, "Surely I come quickly" and hourly I more eagerly respond, "Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus" '” (Brontë, 1847, p.521). This is a very weird ending of a novel that has been more about self-identification, love finding, and ethics than about religion. So why does the story move away from the plot of marriage towards the death of St. John at the very end of the novel?

A first interpretation could be that that Brontë wanted to show what could have happened to Jane if she went with her cousin to India and forgot about her love to Mr. Rochester. St. John had the chance to fall in love with Ms. Oliver but he didn’t believe that love can exist with religion at the same time; as a result, he sacrificed his own happiness with Ms. Oliver in order to go to India where he lived lonely and worked his self out to death. Jessica Richard confirms that Brontë wanted to show what could have happened to Jane by saying: “Though the romantic solution to Jane's choice-of-life inquiry is reinstated, the religious solution remains prominent in the novel's conclusion. Indeed, the novel ends not with Jane the narrator's words, but with St. John's. This substitute authorial voice unsettles the romantic idyll that Jane describes at the end because it continues to suggest that the narrative, and Jane herself, could have followed a different path entirely.” (Richard, 2003, p.351). So Jane chose to live a joyous life with Mr. Rochester rather than going to India with St. John and work herself out to death.

A second interpretation could be that Brontë ended the novel with the story of St. John in order to attack and criticize evangelism and the Victorian father since Brontë has lived in the Victorian era. Richard Chase describes the relation between St. John and Patrick Brontë, the father of Charlotte, as following: “St. John Rivers in his tyrannical evangelism, his cold, harsh dominance, his torpid Christian love-making is Mr. Brontë père.” (Chase, 1947, p.489). Throughout the novel, Brontë presents several characters to criticize religion, especially evangelism, such as Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen Burns, and St. John; however, the novel ended with St. John story since he was the most complex character in the novel. St. John represents the extreme case of evangelism in which he sacrifices his own happiness, love, and life to his duty as a clergy man.

Despite being one of the most interesting and famous British novels, Jane Eyre has one of the most disputed endings in literature. The novel might be ended with St. John death to show us what could have been happened to Jane, or to criticize and attack religion. No one explanation for this ending, yet Brontë forced the readers to think more about it after closing the book.      

References

Brontë, C. (1847). Jane Eyre. The Penguin edition.

Chase, R. (1947). The Brontës: A Centennial Observance (Reconsiderations VIII).

      The Kenyon Review, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Autumn, 1947), pp. 487-506. Retrieved from

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/4332879

Richard, J. (2003). "I Am Equally Weary of Confinement": Women Writers
       and "Rasselas" from "Dinarbas to Jane Eyre". Tulsa Studies in Women's
       Literature, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 335-356. Retrieved from

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/20059156

First Things First

First Things First is a self-help book written by Stephen Covey and Roger & Rebecca Merrill. The book aims to teach us how to put our first things first trough a time management system and defining the priorities in our lives. This excellent book had a real impact on my life, and I always recommend it to people who are willing to make their lives more effective.

Surveys show that the purpose of life for the majority of us is to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.  "First Things First" is a great assistant for all of us to balance our mental, spiritual, physical, and social elements of life. Stephen Covey explains through the book that most people are driven by the concept of urgency. In order to be more effective and relieve our stresses, we need to adjust our concepts to the concept of important – not urgent. This means moving our lives to the Quadrant II activity of the quadrant matrix for importance and urgency (Check the quadrant under the review).  The results of properly dedicating ourselves to Quadrant 2 activity are that we will gain control over what is happening in our lives: we will thereby reduce the time we spend in Quadrant 1. Are you wondering where to find time for the activity in Quadrant 2? Of course it must come from Quadrants 3 and 4 by minimizing or eliminating the time you spend there.

At the end, as Covey reminds us in “The Miracle of the Chinese Bamboo Tree”, when a bamboo tree is first planted, all growth for the first four years occurs underground, but in its fifth year the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet. With this book we can help ourselves develop the roots we need to grow in the years ahead.

The four quadrant matrix for importance and urgency