Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre’s Religious Motivations
In the novel Jane Eyre, Jane is introduce to many motivations throughout her life. Some which are in large parts religious. Jane is religiously motivated by three different characters, which are Mr. Brockelhurst, Helen Burns, and St. John Rivers. With their unique approaches and attitudes towards religion motivated Jane to further her practice of religion.
The first character that positively influences Jane into thinking about religion is Helen Burns. Jane meets Helen at Lowood. She saw Helen as shy and quite but eventually became friends. Helen would tell Jane why and how she dealt with the punishment that Jane was struggling with.   She told Jane not to argue back, and later “Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how he acts--make his word your rule, and his conduct your example”(Bronte, Charlotte 61) . In telling her to do as Christ did makes Jane think about following his teachings and do what is right rather than what she feels. Helen also states that prayer is another great way to get closer to God, that is very important and can be a private matter. The final influence Helen had on Jane was right before her death. With Helen’s positive attitude towards death which showed when she said she believed it was her time to go and it wouldn’t matter because she would be in heaven with God and would see Jane later in life. Once Helen died, Jane was thinking about her and how she was inspired and decided to think about seriously trying to practice her   religious beliefs.

Although Jane did not care for Mr. Brocklehurst , he was another character who motivated her, but in a way of how not to view religion. Jane sees Mr. Brocklehurst as hypocrite   because even though he was preaching privation and the master at   Lowood which encouraged religion, he was actually cruel and dishonest. He was preaching what Christians should do, yet he was not religious himself. Jane realizes Mr. Brocklehurst is not religious when...