Jane Eyre- Question # 4 Hero

Jane Eyre is a hero in many ways.  She is passionate, though she doesn't let this have complete influence over her actions if she feels she is doing something immoral or wrong; she shows this when she flees Thornfield Hall because she discovers Mr. Rochester is already married.  Instead of letting the temptation to live with and become a mistress to Rochester, she leaves him.  (Bronte 382-383)

Jane is also consistently faithful and generous throughout the novel.  Her generosity is shown when the news is revealed to her that she has inherited a fortune from her uncle.  She doesn't receive this news very happily until St. John tells her that she and the Rivers siblings are actually cousins.  This makes her happy because it gives her the idea to split up the twenty thousand pounds she'd inherited among the four individuals so they could become a family at the Moor House. (Bronte 452-456)

Lastly, Jane is independent, original, and opinionated.  She proves her independence in telling Mr. Rochester, "I  am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you." (Bronte 313)

After a life full of struggles, Jane achieves a life of blissfulness with her true love Mr. Rochester with a clean conscious.  Because she didn't give into temptation and live with him before his current wife was dead or accept the marriage proposal of her cousin, St. John, neither of which would have been moral in accordance to her principles, she may now live a happy life with her beloved husband.

I think that Jane represents the idea of goodness, because she always acts on principle and she tries to help people.  She often serves people throughout the book; for example, when Mrs. Reed was seriously ill, Jane tried to comfort her as she was dying while her own daughters just sat around waiting for their mother to die.  (Bronte 288)

Brontë, Charlotte, Susan Ostrov. Weisser, and George Stade. Jane Eyre. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003. Electronic.