Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre has different circumstances and therefore her passion has a different result than Antoinette’s in Wide Sargasso Sea. Through fire imagery the book Jane Eyre argues that uncontrolled passion and no passion are wrong, but a controlled passion is good. The character of Bertha represents uncontrolled passion, whereas St. John represents no passion. Jane Eyre finds herself at different points in the story to be too passionate and not passionate enough, but at the end of the book she finds a place where her passion can burn warm and bright instead of destroying what it touches. Bertha so passionately and insanely hates Rochester that she burns everything she touches. Her uncontrolled passion lights Rochester’s curtains on fire, and it destroys Thornfield and herself. She constantly burns against Rochester with no control, and Charlotte Bronte portrays this through fire. Almost every time Bertha escapes her cell she lights something on fire. Bertha has no control over her passion, and it destroys her. On the other hand St. John is also destroyed by burying his passion. His attitude is always cold. Instead of kindling his fire in a fireplace, he douses it with cool water. When Jane confronts him about his flame for Miss Oliver he says this: “I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am--a cold hard man” (Bronte Chapter 32). He refuses to love, because he believes that passion is wrong. He puts out his fire to be a cold man. What he does not understand is that the fire of passion cannot be put out. It can be subdued and ignored but never put out; Jane Eyre argues that the flames of passion used for the right reasons and controlled in the right way are useful and good. St. John does not understand this and therefore remains unhappy in his coldness. Unlike St. John and Bertha, Jane Eyre is able to find the balance of her fire.  At the beginning of the book she has too much fire and not enough control, but people along the way teach her to use her fire for her own gain.  After Helen is unjustly punished Jane "ran to Helen, tore it [a sign saying "Slattern"] off, and thrust it into the fire.  The fury of which [Helen] was incapable had been burning in my soul all day" (Bronte Chapter 8).  Jane is full of passion against injustice,  but she doesn't know how to control it as Helen does.  Helen and others along the way show her that there is more to passion than a roaring forest fire; perhaps if contained it can heat and shine without destruction.  Again Jane falls into the trap of too much passion when she falls in love with Mr. Rochester.  He tells Adele a story of where he will take Jane, and he says, "Fire rises out of the lunar mountains; when she is cold, I'll carry her up to a peak and lay her down of the edge of a crater" (Bronte Chapter 24).  Jane is learning to control her passion, but she comes to a precipice; she teeters on the edge when Rochester asks her to stay and be his mistress, but she has learned better than that.  She chooses to control her fire and walk away from the burning crater.  Rochester's passion almost swallows her, but she leaves instead.  Later in the book though Jane recognizes the death that comes with St. John's coldness as well.  She knows that to suppress her fire would be death as much as falling over the edge of the precipice.  Jane chooses to return to Rochester at the end of the book to find her fire and is able to let her passion burn in a right love for him.