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    Jane Eyre Essay 1

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    Ben Huynh
    In the novel Jane Eyre, Helen Burns is portrayed as a virtuous and God-oriented character who serves as a foil to the independent Jane Eyre. Helen endures humiliation and abuse with submission and devotion to God. Her encouragement of Jane to abandon anger and maintain virtue through embracing religion has a lasting impact on Jane even after Helen's death. While Jane cannot fully accept Helen's way of life, she does integrate some of her influence by learning to forgive and endure hardship with patience.

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    Jane Eyre Essay 1

    Uploaded by

    Ben Huynh
    485 views2 pages
    In the novel Jane Eyre, Helen Burns is portrayed as a virtuous and God-oriented character who serves as a foil to the independent Jane Eyre. Helen endures humiliation and abuse with submission and devotion to God. Her encouragement of Jane to abandon anger and maintain virtue through embracing religion has a lasting impact on Jane even after Helen's death. While Jane cannot fully accept Helen's way of life, she does integrate some of her influence by learning to forgive and endure hardship with patience.

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    In the novel Jane Eyre, Helen Burns is portrayed as a virtuous and God-oriented character who serves as a foil to the independent Jane Eyre. Helen endures humiliation and abuse with submission and devotion to God. Her encouragement of Jane to abandon anger and maintain virtue through embracing religion has a lasting impact on Jane even after Helen's death. While Jane cannot fully accept Helen's way of life, she does integrate some of her influence by learning to forgive and endure hardship with patience.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    485 views2 pages

    Jane Eyre Essay 1

    Uploaded by

    Ben Huynh
    In the novel Jane Eyre, Helen Burns is portrayed as a virtuous and God-oriented character who serves as a foil to the independent Jane Eyre. Helen endures humiliation and abuse with submission and devotion to God. Her encouragement of Jane to abandon anger and maintain virtue through embracing religion has a lasting impact on Jane even after Helen's death. While Jane cannot fully accept Helen's way of life, she does integrate some of her influence by learning to forgive and endure hardship with patience.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    In the novel Jane Eyre, author Charlotte Bronte depicts a strong-minded and

    independent character in Jane Eyre. Charlotte accomplishes this through the


    utilization of the foil character Helen Burns. Jane, at the time of meeting Helen,
    possessed several negative traits that stood in stark contrast to Helene’s morality.
    Likewise the facets of Helen’s character were too much for Jane to emulate.
    However Helen’s tragic and sudden death later proved to have a lasting impact on
    Jane’s character. Charlotte Bronte portrayed a God-oriented, submissive, and
    virtuous girl in Helen Burns in order to get across to Jane the aspects that she was
    lacking.

    Out of all the motifs in the novel, religion remained prominent. Helen was
    fiercely devoted to God and understood that a healthy relationship with virtue would
    grant her admission into heaven. As Helen died in Jane’s cradling embrace, she
    reassured Jane that she was going to join God in his eternal kingdom. Helen
    encouraged Jane to live a similar life, which Jane ultimately could not accept. This
    became evident with the introduction of St. John later in the novel. She could have
    chosen a loveless but devoted life to God with St. John and almost accepted the
    decision. This was perhaps a lasting remnant of Helen on Jane. Also reflective of this
    were other instances in the novel where Jane prayed to God for guidance. However
    Jane ultimately rejected God’s will by rejecting St. John and in turn refusing Helen’s
    way of life. Helen also believed that a part of being virtuous was to submit to control
    and not fight back.

    Helen was humiliated many times in Lowood, which Jane could not stand to
    watch. Jane was eager for Helen to retaliate, reflecting her own incident with her
    Aunt Reed. After being sentenced to a terrifying experience in the red room, Jane
    finally struck back at Aunt Reed, professing her burning hatred for her. After hearing
    the cruel childhood story of Jane, Helen was sympathetic but rather unmoved. Helen
    encouraged Jane to let go of the fire and anger that burned within her, lest she
    become no better than her aunt or cousin, John Reed. At the time Jane scoffed at
    the idea of ever dousing the flame, but ultimately came to terms with it. As word
    got to Jane of her dying Aunt Reed, Jane decided to pause her budding relationship
    with Rochester to go visit her. Helen also stood as a virtuous role model for Jane.

    Helen’s submission to abuse and torment while still maintaining a devotion to


    God exemplifies her virtuous character. As mentioned before, Jane took the time to
    go see her dying aunt one last time and even forgave her. While back at Gateshead,
    she also took time to assist the two cousins she had never favored. After the
    revelation of Bertha’ existence, Jane realized that she could not lead a virtuous life
    with an already-married man, and thus had to flee. However a life with St. John
    would have resulted in the exact opposite. Despite this fact however, Jane still
    chose love over virtue. Likewise although she rejected Helen’s ideal, she still
    received her love in the end.
    Jane Eyre stood as a polar opposite of character next to Helen Burns. Helen
    encouraged Jane to love God, endure abuse, and maintain virtue. Helen’s death also
    solidified these aspects in Jane’s mind. However her ideals were also extreme in the
    sense that Jane could never full adopt them. In the end Jane learned to blend these
    aspects with her own ideals and was able to attain true happiness.

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