Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester and Mark’s Gospel

Reader, she married him…. finally… eventually…. at last…. But what trials and tribulations Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester had to go through to get to a wedding day without disruption from lawyers and awkward in-laws, after the previous attempt,  a year or so earlier, was traumatically abandoned after that grim voice spoke those devastating words: This marriage cannot go on – I declare the existence of an impediment….  The revelation was then spoken out that Mr. Rochester had a wife, still living, shut up as a lunatic (to use the language of those times) in the attic of his house. On being found out and confronted, before the marriage to Jane can go ahead, Mr. Rochster says:

Bigamy is an ugly word! — I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me,– perhaps the last. I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. 

With the words quenchless fire and deathless worm Rochester is referencing Mark chapter nine, so he had clearly been paying at least some kind of attention during his scripture lessons. Those words, from that passage, which I’ll come back to in a moment, were to come back and hit him hard  – but also pointed the way to his eventual redemption. 

In the meantime though, after the quiet but dramatic scenes in the church, the story continues. Jane resists Mr. Rochester’s attempts to persuade her to become his mistress and flees Thornfield Hall, with no plan of where to go, or what to do. She very nearly dies of exposure out on the moor before being rescued and taken in by Clergyman, St. John River and his sisters, Diana and Mary. A year or so passes by, Jane resists St. John River’s marriage proposal, so that she could be his missionary wife in India and – having now come into an inheritance, making her an independent lady of means – decides to set out to discover what became of Mr. Rochester. She finds out that after she had fled Thornfield, he had spent his time and energies, searching for her, roaming the countryside, far and wide and – unable to find her – had then shut himself up in the house, alone and morose. One night, Bertha, his deranged and dangerous wife, managed to set fire to her chambers, thus setting fire to the entire house. Mr. Rochester bravely tries to rescue her out of the flames, unsuccessfully, as Bertha throws herself to her death. Mr. Rochester is injured in the rescue attempt, losing – very significantly –  one eye and his right hand in the process.

Maybe I’m a bit dense, maybe everybody else has noticed this and it’s nothing new, but I read Jane Eyre a number of times, before realising that these events take us back to that passage from Mark chapter 9, that Mr. Rochester so bitterly references after his first attempt to marry Jane has to be abandoned. Here is that passage, Mark Chapter Nine, verses 43 to 46:  

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot is causing you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life without a foot, than, having your two feet, to be thrown into hell. And if your eye is causing you to sin, throw it away; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not extinguished. 

And so, Mr. Rochester experienced both a literal and spiritual fulfilment of that passage he had spoken out – in a kind of unintended prophecy –  at that aborted wedding. He had – quite literally – lost his right eye and his right hand, in the fiery flames of Thornfield Hall, but to escape the fiery flames mentioned in Mark 9.

After their reunion, Jane and Mr. Rochester spend time together talking and comparing their experiences over the previous year. Mr. Rochester is in greatly reduced circumstances, but clearly sees the merciful hand of God in his situation. He says:

… you know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to a foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane – only of late – I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my maker. I began sometimes to pray; very brief prayers they were, but very sincere. 

If you haven’t read Jane Eyre maybe put it on your reading list. I know nothing about the author, Charlotte Bronte’, I have no idea if the clear Christian theology that is interwoven into the storyline – as well as very clear condemnation of some of the very harsh and uncaring expressions of churchmanship of those times – comes from deep personal conviction.. Judging only by the book, though, it would seem to be from personal conviction, but maybe others can correct me here and when I have some time, I’ll do some research. At any rate, Jane Eyre has, as it’s very final words, while quoting the character of St. John Rivers, the same words that appear at the close of the bible:

“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!’”