2011-06-08 21:13:18, 回應(0), 人氣(3924)4. Jane Eyre quotes:
How they cite the quotes: Citations follow this format: (Volume.Chapter.Paragraph)
Cited from: http://www.shmoop.com/jane-eyre/marriage-quotes.html
About Morality and Ethics Quotes and the explanations：
1. I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathize with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child – though equally dependent and friendless – Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scape-goat of the nursery. (1.2.30)
Even at the very beginning of her life, Jane doesn’t really fit in with her surroundings; she’s an outsider from the start. What seems to set her apart her and made her different from her aunt’s family and household is her sense of injustice and her inability to let unfairness wash over her. There also seems no possibility of compromise, of integrating a "heterogeneous thing" like Jane into an otherwise homogenous household. Those who are unlike in temperament, the novel implies, will always be incapable of living in harmony. It’s important, then, to find people to live with who may be different in class, bloodline, or situation, but are the same in attitude. (Hint, hint!) We also see, in this passage, how willing – almost eager – Jane is to characterize herself as different, as distinct.
2. Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?"
But the answer my mind gave – "Leave Thornfield at once" – was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester’s bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. (3.1.1-5)
Jane’s moment of great ethical crisis turns (in her mind, at least) into an allegorical scene in which Conscience and Passion start brawling, and Conscience is the bully. It’s interesting that Jane knows immediately and certainly what is morally right in this situation – what’s difficult isn’t to know what she has to do, but to make herself do it.
3. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad – as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth – so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane – quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot. (3.1.122)
When Rochester tries to claim that Jane can reject conventional morality just because she doesn’t have any family around to be offended by her decision, she realizes how much more important it is to do the right thing when you are alone in the world.
4. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land – Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? […] Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes – and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death. (3.8.114)
