How does characters' religious relationships affect religion depiction in Jane Eyre and Silas Marner?
In many literary works, authors assign particular personal worldviews to characters as a means of defining the religious perspective of the text.
For example, consider the contrast between Mr. Rochester and St. John’s perspectives on religion in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester goes against Christian morals by living as if his first marriage is over. In contrast, St. John strictly adheres to Christian morals but wants to drain the sentimentality from religion and distance himself from its communal and emotional aspects. He considers himself "stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity-a cold hard, ambitious man" (Brontë 406). St. John is a faithful person, but one who has a cynical view of the world, who often uses his faith as a means of judging others. This negatively impacts his interpersonal relationships.
The contrast between Mr. Rochester and St. John suggests a need for a middle...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
ground when it comes to religious morals. Mr. Rochester is not a strictly religious man and struggles to have authentic human connections because of his clouded morals. St. John is a very religious man but struggles to have authentic human connections because of his cold sense of Christianity.Jane, however, ultimately finds a balance between Christian morality and compassionate human connection.
Through these three characters, Brontë suggests that religion needs both loving human connections and strong adherence to the faith in order for one to lead a happy, fulfilling life.
How are religion and religious community presented in Silas Marner and Jane Eyre?
Religious themes are prominent in both Silas Marner and Jane Eyre, though the specifics of these themes differ. Neither says too much about doctrine or dogma (though characters do protest a belief in the supernatural and the afterlife in both), but they do say much about faith.
Silas Marner is most concerned with how faith and the community are linked to one another. When Silas is cast out from his religious community due to a crime he did not commit, he forsakes faith in God. He had God rigidly defined and believed such a God would not permit him to be victimized, but when reality did not meet his expectations, he became both a non-believer and a recluse. It is only in adopting Eppie and coming to love her that Silas regains faith, though it is a different faith than what he had before:
By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing the effect that everything produced on her, he had himself come to appropriate the forms of custom and belief which were the mould of Raveloe life; and as, with reawakening sensibilities, memory also reawakened, he had begun to ponder over the elements of his old faith, and blend them with his new impressions, till he recovered a consciousness of unity between his past and present.
This new faith is linked to his love for Eppie and the new ideas he has about what makes life worth living. This is a less explicitly religious faith than faith in love and the inherent goodness of life.
Religious community plays far less of a role in Jane Eyre than it does in Silas Marner. Charlotte Bronte is more concerned with the faith of the individual in spite of collective pressures than in how the individual's faith operates within a collective. Many people around Jane twist certain Bible passages or doctrines to conform to their idea of the world and control other people, Mr. Brocklehurst being the most extreme example. Brocklehurst uses religion to justify abusing the girls at the Lowood school, claiming hunger and lack of comfort will "save" their souls from being corrupted by pride and ease. Even the more benign St. John tries to guilt Jane into coming to India with him as a missionary's wife by claiming she defies God if she rejects his suit.
Jane ultimately uses her own faith to give her strength in facing temptation (such as rejecting Rochester's offer of making her his mistress) and adversity (such as when she almost dies of exposure). Her belief in the goodness and justice of God allows her to live in a way that is itself good and just. She models herself after her childhood friend Helen Burns, whose Christian faith allowed her to endure abuse and even forgive her abusers, letting her live life without bitterness or hate.
Regarding the beliefs of both George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte, Bronte was a more traditional believer than Eliot. She was an Anglican who loved her faith, even if she did not agree with everything espoused by the church's clergy and saw them as a class susceptible to error. Eliot was a skeptic who rejected orthodox Christian beliefs and embraced a more humanist philosophy.