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#such as Darcy's pride and rudeness or Wentworth's pettiness
thatscarletflycatcher
·
11 months
Text
The more the time passes, the more convinced I am that a reading of Jane Eyre that omits the theme of mercy as key to the story is incomplete at best and bad at worst.
#jane eyre
#i think this is at the root of all the insidious and useless darcy vs rochester comparisons
#because ultimately the wrong Austen heroes do is forgivable
#the effects of their sins are more or less easily reversable
#such as Darcy's pride and rudeness or Wentworth's pettiness
#there is mercy being served with atonement
#but it isn't a radical mercy
#which I think is the point in Jane Eyre
#Rochester's attempted bigamy is beyond justification
#it can only be understood as sourced in stupidity and immaturity rather than in true wickedness
#it can also be understood as part of the way he was raised up and the sins of his own father
#but cannot be justified
#Rochester can only be either hated and shunned or loved and forgiven
#there's no possibility of indifference
#the characters that create the most unhappiness to themselves and others in this novel are those who live without mercy
#and those who act with mercy the opposite
#Rochester's redemption is possible because he has shown mercy to others
#at least sometimes like Adele and his first years with Bertha
#st John can have everything in his favor and yet his mercilessness makes him a figure of fear for Jane
#Jane's deliberate choice to show mercy again and again IS essential to the story
#Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman AND a romance because of it
#readings that seek to turn Rochester into a complete forever villain
#i.e. he is a liar and he actually tortured Bertha into madness
#are ultimately readings that want a reason to reject any sort of mercy for him
#by making him incapable of good and repentance
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