Religion In Jane Eyre

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Comparison of Moral Development on the Grounds of Religion Religion is recurring in many works of literature developing its characters, plot, and theme. Religion develops characterization because of its many interpretations and contradiction to natural human desires. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man religion is a crucial factor in the protagonist's moral development. In the novel Jane Eyre, religion is a crucial part in the development of Jane’s moral development alongside her search for family, her place in society, and her role as a women. Throughout the novel Jane is exposed to three different interpretations of spirituality. Jane’s exposure to other character’s views on christianity …show more content…
John. St. John rejects passion and true affection in the name of faith. St. John is in love with the beautiful Ms. Rosamond Oliver and she is in love with him but he rejects her because he believes she can not be a proper missionary wife unlike Jane. St. John expresses his mindset to Jane by saying, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly—with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months’ rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.”(3.6.45) By encountering St. John’s reluctance towards passion and love because of his religious goals, Jane decides she wants to live a life with passion and love with Mr. …show more content…
Stephen begins sleeping with prostitutes in rejection of his father’s own drunken lifestyle and the distance he feels between them. Stephen’s lustful actions are described as, “He would follow a devious course up and down the streets, circling always nearer and nearer in a tremor of fear and joy, until his feet led him suddenly round a dark corner. The whores would be just coming out of their houses making ready for the night, yawning lazily after their sleep and settling the hairpins in their clusters of hair. He would pass by them calmly waiting for a sudden movement of his own will or a sudden call to his sin-loving soul from their soft perfumed flesh.”(3.1.2) Stephen’s lustful actions come to a halt when he goes on a religious retreat with his school and is lectured on judgment day, sin, and Hell. Stephen is flooded by fear and regret sharply redirecting his actions away from lust and to complete pity. Stephen thinks to himself that, “Every word of it was for him. Against his sin, foul and secret, the whole wrath of God was aimed. The preacher's knife had probed deeply into his disclosed conscience and he felt now that his soul was festering in sin. Yes, the preacher was right. God's turn had come. Like a beast in its lair his soul had lain down in its own filth but the blasts of the angel's trumpet had

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