In Chapter 6 of Jane Eyre, Jane has an exchange with Helen Burns. After seeing Helen cruelly chastised for minor issues, Jane speaks with her:
“You must wish to leave Lowood.”
“No! Why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have obtained that object. ”
“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?”
“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes all my faults.”
“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.”
“Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us to return good for evil.”
“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.”
“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what is your fate to be required to bear.”
I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could understand or sympathize with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
“You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very good.”
“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances. I am, as Miss Scatcherd said: slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in order; I am careless: I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular.”
“And cross and cruel”, I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my addition: she kept silent.
“Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?”
At the utterance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face. “Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.”
“That is curious, said I, it is so easy to be careful.”
“For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream.”
Jane sees abuse, which she recognizes right away since she herself has suffered it at her previous home, Gateshead Hall. But her new friend, Helen, has a different perspective.
Rather than seeing Miss Scatcherd’s correction as abuse, she accepts it as severe, but merited correction for her own faults. Jane insists that she would not endure such abuse, and given her recent behavior, it may be true. Helen’s responses are truly Christian; and jarringly so. It is as hard to relate to Helen as it is to Jesus when he speaks these things. Helen reasons it out for us though when she says that it would be better for her to suffer something that only she will feel, than have it felt by others connected to her.
Upon hearing Jane’s rather commonplace statement that ‘she couldn’t bear it’, Helen responds that it is silly to say she can’t bear something that she would have to bear, particularly if it were unavoidable.
Jane thinks to herself, just like any of us would, that this attitude is incomprehensible… and yet it feels like it is correct, while she herself is probably wrong. Isn’t that odd? It must speak to a innate sense we have of right and wrong, that even when something feels so contrary to our nature, we still grasp that it is a better, and therefore, correct, way.
Helen is wise way beyond her years, wiser than most of us at any age. She grasps her own faults, and accepts her corrections, even when understands they are probably too severe. She doesn’t hold it against those inflicting the punishments on her. She laments the fact that while Miss Temple is particularly kind and encouraging in her own attempts at correction, even then, Helen can’t seem to bring herself to change.
This immediately brought to mind how the Lord is with me: he is gentle and kind in his correction, exceedingly patient and longsuffering in waiting. It is I who is thickheaded, stubborn, and downright selfish and disobedient. While I can acknowledge that between the Lord and I, I’m not certain at all that I’d do near so well as Helen when dealing with correction from another human agent.
A few pages later, in this passage of Chapter 6, Jane asks Helen:
“Well, then, with Miss Temple are you good?”
“Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.”
“A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would always grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should- so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl.”
“But I feel this Hellen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”
“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilized nations disown it.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“It is not violence that best overcomes hate- nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”
“What then?”
“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His world your rule, and His conduct your example.”
“What does He say?”
“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”
“Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; and I should bless her son, John, which is impossible.”
In her turn, Helen burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.
Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing.
“Well”, I asked impatiently, “is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?”
“She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, – the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No, I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest, a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.”
There is an interesting exchange here:
Jane reasons out why she feels injustice must be resisted: If it is accepted, as Helen has suggested, then the unjust would continue to abuse and never alter their misdeeds. Therefore, we, when treated unjustly, MUST strike back “very hard”, so as to teach the person not to do it again.
That’s not an unreasonable point.
Yet, Helen retorts, without hesitation, that while heathens and savage tribes think that way, Christians and civilized nations ‘disown’ it.
Why? Jane asks. Helen says love best overcomes hate, not violence.
Jane answers that she can’t do that, and launches into a catalog of the injustices she suffered.
Helen notes that her holding on to this catalog has in fact made such a deep impression on Jane, that perhaps it would be better, for Jane herself, if she were able to let those things go.
Then Helen breaks from orthodoxy with what sounds like a belief that all humanity will eventually end up in heaven. This is, I believe, not biblical, but driven by a desire to reconcile people’s trouble with a good God, that sends people to eternal punishment. Lots of people believe this, but I don’t think it’s correct, nor do I think it necessary to produce the effects Helen claims it produces. As if belief in Hell and eternal punishment would preclude understanding:
We all have faults in this world
Distinguishing between sinner and sin
Forgiving the first, while condemning the last
Revenge not worrying the heart
Degradation never too deeply disgusting her,
Injustice never crushing her too low
Living in calm, looking towards the end.
Those things can be accomplished without the need for abolishing Hell. But nonetheless, Helen is truly remarkeable in living this out.
In Chapter 8, after Mr Brocklehurst has shown up and proclaimed Jane a liar in front of the other girls, Jane is heartbroken and angry. Her friend Helen comes over to her.
“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?”
“Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.”
“But what have I to do with millions? The eighty, I know, despise me.”
“Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.”
“How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?”
“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he ever a great and admired man: he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favorite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression.”
“Besides Jane…” she paused.
“Well, Helen?” said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on –
“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”
“No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don’t love me I would rather die than live – I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest – ”
“Hush, Jane! You think too much of the love of human beings.”
Another fantastic exchange where Jane is taught to see that just because Mr Brocklehurst doesn’t like her, doesn’t mean no one else does. Most people can see through the hypocrisy, even if it seemed to Jane that this wasn’t true.
Finally Helen tells Jane she is much too concerned with seeking others’ approval. I can relate.