18. Jane Eyre: (pg. 378)

18. Jane Eyre: (pg. 378)
“ ‘My spirit,” I answered mentally, “is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly know to me.’”

Religion played a strong role in Charlotte Bronte’s life. Her father was a minister and Jane attended a school called the Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge. The person Charlotte Bronte married was her father’s religious assistant. Religion and references to religious thought is written throughout Jane Eyre. One of the main characters, St. John Rivers, is a minister who helps to save Jane when she is in trouble and eventually wants to marry her. In this quote, Jane is thinking spiritually about what she is going to do. Bronte used religious ideas in developing Jane’s character, and she may have used Jane’s character to explore her own views about religion.


“Charlotte Bronte, A Brief Biography.” The Victorian Web. Literature, history and culture in the age of Victoria. 1987. 25 November 2009. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontbio.html

“Charlotte Bronte.” The Literature Network. Jalic, Inc. 2000-2009. 25 November 2009.
http://www.online-literature.com/brontec/.

Erlich, Julie. Afterword. Jane Eyre. By Charolotte Bronte. The Reader’s Digest Association. September 1984. 25 November 2009.

Jackson, Mark. Tone and Context in Tennyson's "Tithonus" (1833) and Brontë's Jane Eyre. The Victorian Web. 1996. 27 November 2009. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/73tone.html.