Brontë's Religion: Faith, Feminism, And Jane Eyre

During the Victorian period in England, the evangelical movement present led to an incline in the worshiping of God as a guiding figure and impacted the spread of the feminism that subsequently led to an increase in woman’s spirituality and desire for independence. The feminist ideals portrayed by women in England came about by the first wave feminism in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Emily Griesinger describes God as the apparent figure for the strengthening of feminism in her work, “Charlotte Brontë's Religion: Faith, Feminism, and Jane Eyre.” Griesinger explains in her article that Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre uses God to serve as prominent motivator for Jane feminist beliefs of splitting off from the traditional gender roles. Although Griesinger portrays God as a medium through which Jane can express her independence as a woman and break traditional roles, she contradicts her own argument by establishing …show more content…
Rochester takes interest in Jane and Blanche Ingram. Informed about their wedding and overtaken by jealousy, Jane reminds herself that “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Brontë 322). Jane realizes that the need for another person in her life to rely on is optional and unnecessary to live contently. Jane hides her feelings for Rochester and lives on exercising independence and her need only for God and her Christian beliefs. Jane uses God to express her fortuity and independence and her “growing awareness of the importance of faith and Christian belief in strengthening and empowering her as a woman” (Griesinger 47). Griesinger contradicts her argument of Jane’s separation from Rochester by asserting that “Jane can find social and sexual freedom through breaking the chain of Christianity.” Her statement explains that Jane should express her love for Rochester and that Christianity is a weight that holds her down from her true