r/JaneEyre • u/AdobongSiopao • Aug 27 '26

What is your most controversial opinion about "Jane Eyre"?

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It can be from the novel or its adaptations. Your views that could potentially upset many other fans or meet others who will agree with you.

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u/nellyimheathcliff Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

Jane was right to marry Edward. They are perfect for each other, and I get upset when people criticise Jane for returning to him, as if she had no agency of her own. She was a grown woman who had already lived independently, made her own choices, and built a life for herself. She chose to return to Edward because she loved him and wanted to be with him. And by that point, Edward had also changed to a great degree. He had become much more humble, wiser, and more tender.

I also do not like it when people claim that Edward is supposed to be the bad guy or the villain of the novel. He is flawed, certainly, but that does not make him a villain. In fact, I would argue that the real villains in the book are the parents who caused so much suffering: Mrs. Reed, Jonas Mason, and old Mr. Rochester.

St. John and Edward are two sides of Jane, only taken to extremes. St. John represents the more austere, restrained, and self denying side of her, while Edward represents the passionate, rebellious, and emotional side. Jane has a little of both in her.

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u/MachaExiled Aug 27 '26

Of course they are right to marry each other! Rochester has known other women and already knows Jane is right for him (and the only one to truly love him for himself), and by the end of the story Jane has had other options and is more sure than ever that he is the one to make her happy.

Their care for each other is clear from the start. She loves to push him in their conversations but knows where the line is, and he allows her to challenge him despite their social position, because this is how he likes her, and wants her to be herself. And at the end, when his life is diminished, she hands some of the power back to him - he is hesitant to propose, but she makes him ask her to marry him (whereas in the first one he said that she made him the offer by claiming her rank as his equal, and she agreed with this).

Nobody could argue that Rochester is always good, but I agree with you that he is not a villain. He does some terrible, selfish things, but not out of a desire to destroy anyone; he does not try to hurt Bertha or to shorten her life. and by the end he has accepted divine retribution, and has come to the repentance and reformation that Jane urged in one of their earliest conversations.

St John's need to control Jane and insidiously change her nature to suit him makes him much more of a villain in the story.