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Essay on Jane Eyre and Janie Crawford
Jane Eyre is very much the story of a quest to be loved. Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging. Yet, over the course of the book, Jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing and harming herself in the process. Jane struggles to find the right balance between moral duty and earthly pleasure, between obligation to her spirit and attention to her body. She encounters three main religious figures: Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen Burns, and St. John Rivers. Each represents a model of religion that Jane ultimately rejects as she forms her own ideas about “faith and principle, and their practical consequences” (Dunn, 2000).
While in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ is the story of how Janie achieves a strong sense of self and comes to appreciate her independence. But her journey toward enlightenment is not undertaken alone. The gender differences that Hurston espouses require that men and women provide each other things that “they need but do not possess” (Bloom, 1988). Janie views fulfilling relationships as reciprocal and based on mutual respect, as demonstrated in her relationship with Tea Cake, which elevates Janie into equality noticeably absent from her marriages to Logan and Jody.
The development of Jane Eyre’s character is central to the novel. From the beginning, Jane possesses a sense of her self worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of her so as to find contentment.
While in Their Eyes Were Watching God the story revolves around Janie’s relationships with other people, it is first and foremost a story of Janie’s search for spiritual enlightenment and a strong sense of her own identity.......
