April 27, 2004

What is Love, Jane Eyre

            There are many kinds of love, but there are mainly three predominant types: love for family; love for God(s); love for another.  Of these three, love for another can be the most subjective and widely ranged. 

            Love for relations entails an obligatory sense of love: a love born out of gratefulness for those who you live among and are supposedly closest with.  Regardless, love for family may be the strongest, longest-lasting bond: ideally, the family remains supportive of each member throughout life while friends may come and go as they please.  Jane, unfortunately, is denied a love for family, but finds a similar love in Miss Temple.  The only person the orphan Jane would have considered like a parent is Miss Temple: “[Miss Temple’s] friendship and society had been my continual solace: she had stood me in the stead of mother
 

 [and] governess . . . with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me” (Bronte 73).  Once Miss Temple left town as a married women, Jane realized her to be a mere companion for she left Jane.

            Love for God involves a high respect for his being and his teachings.  Jane’s friend, Helen, on her death bed, pronounces her faith in God:  “I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to him without any misgiving.  God is my father; God is my friend: I love him; I believe he loves me’” (Bronte 71).  This kind of love lacks a sense of physicality.  To truly love God, one must believe wholly in a God that lacks physical being.  The strongest tied between God and a person is that God sacrificed his only son, Jesus so that we may live.  Through the publicized death of Jesus, do we reason to love God for what he has done out of his love for us.

            Love for another varies from person to person, but generally one feels a strong feeling of passion towards the other.  For example, when Rochester informs Jane of his unrequited, long ago love for a French dancer, ‘there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him. . .” (Bronte 128).  To me, love is a great sense of caring for another as if he is family; care for another is the primary constitute of loving.  Love is a simple yearning for his presence; love is butterflies in your stomach when you’re with him.  Why do people love?  People love because eventually that “love” can bring the passing of genes.  People love because once you’ve grown up and become less attached to your family you must find another partner and start a family.  People love because they feel the need to be “complete.”