Deep and Difficult Eyes: The Insistence of Vision in
Jane Eyre
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Jane's visions are given life in her dreams and in her paintings, both of which she discusses with Edward Rochester. In their discussion of a collection of her paintings, she tells him, "In each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realize" (Vol. I, Chapter 13, p. 144). But this statement can also be seen as a comment on Jane's inability (or unwillingness) to realize her own desires without first putting them at the safe remove of someone, or something, else's influence.
Even when she knows something is amiss before embarking upon her aborted wedding to Rochester, she is easily cozened from most of her doubts after having had, not only two disturbing dreams, but an actual physical visit from the woman she will soon learn is Rochester's first wife. She confronts him what she has witnessed, either physically or psychically, just as she had laid her paintings out before him earlier, but he dismisses them even while knowing they are not baseless. Their dialogue might be between Jane and her inner self, questioning and interpreting, but then drawing back and refusing to take anything but the simplest, most comfortable answer:
"Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?"
I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: satisfied I was not, but to please him, I endeavoured to appear so [...]. (Vol. II, Chapter 10, p. 319).
Jane might as well be speaking of her self-delusion, appearing to be happy to please, not Rochester, but herself. Of course, her image-laden dreams did indeed presage disaster, and after the revelation of Rochester's secret she leaves him, and once again plunges into the unknown. This time, however, no one places her there; even so, Jane still shores up her own resolution with an admonition given by a beautiful, human-like figure in the moon, acting as a mother and telling her uncertain daughter to forge ahead. Only after that assurance does Jane leave Thornfield and literally turn up on destiny's doorstep.
After two days of wandering the countryside in starvation and destitution, Jane is taken in by the Rivers family, who will in short order prove to be her cousins. This experience is a rebirth for Jane; she regains her birthright and her heritage, and reconstructs her life in much the same way she had done before: she is a teacher to young girls, she shares a household with her three older cousins, she has known hunger and cold and discomfort, and she once again is asked to marry a man about whom she has, if not doubts, at least concerns about her own role in his destiny.
St. John Rivers, her imposing older cousin, wants her to be his "helpmeet" when he travels to India as a missionary, and will not accept her presence in any other way but as his wife. Jane is unwilling to do this, despite St. John's many convincing arguments. Just as she did not want to be Rochester's mistress, having seen how he had tired of the others, she does not want to be St. John's weapon in his holy quest, only to perish in the exhaustion of having been wielded. His inexorable discussion of the topic has begun to sway her, however, and once again it seems that she might let someone else's opinion guide her to a decision of which she is uncertain. In text resembling an almost religious rite -- "I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch" -- Jane is suddenly awash in visual manifestations.
Religion called -- Angels beckoned -- God commanded -- life rolled together like a scroll -- death's gates opening, shewed eternity beyond [...] the dim room was full of visions. (Vol. III, Chapter 9, p. 466.)
After this vivid description, Jane once again experiences the same kind of physical reaction she had so many years ago in the red room, with one vital difference:
My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. Suddenly, it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock; but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling; it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity had been but torpor; from which they were now summoned, and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited, while the flesh quivered on my bones. (Vol. III, Chapter 9, p. 466.)
What is different, and so ultimately important, here is that Jane has remained in the visionary state long enough to derive from it what she really needs to know -- that it is not with St. John Rivers, or as a spinster in the Rivers home, that she will spend her life, but that she is now ready to go back to Edward Rochester. Whatever his circumstances may be, she is now ready to return to him, and (as she will discover) his life has also altered in such a way that the two of them can be together.
Leaving out any supernatural interpretation of her experience or its possible source, Jane has faced down the fog of visions and come to terms with what she really wants. It is not that the vision "shows" or even "tells" her what she wants -- it is that she has learned to regard the vision fully, with that observant eye she has, and to use it herself to know what she desires. She even acknowledges this: "It was my time to assume ascendancy. My powers were in play, and in force." (Vol. III, Chapter 9, p. 467.) She again reaches the state of authority she found so briefly as a child in the window seat. After ten years, she wakes from the nightmare of the red room and is again in a position of power, able to face her visions head-on, even if it now means leaving the safety of the window seat and going out into the pale blank of the winter afternoon.
The pale blank reveals a Rochester who is maimed, half-blinded, and no longer the man so sure of himself that he would take one bride while still possessing another. Although certainly the removal of the legal impediment to their marriage is important (Bertha having leapt to her death after having destroyed her prison) what is more important is that Jane has come to Rochester on her own terms, having recognized her own powers and assumed control over her fate, and having left the safety of interested onlooker in her own life. In that context, she is able to allow herself to marry Rochester -- not because he wants her to, or because the moon or a fairy or anyone else told her to, but because she wanted to do so.
Charlotte Brontë equips Jane Eyre with powerful vision as both an artist and as a visionary; through her paintings, her visions and even her "biography," she "frames" her desires, her surroundings, and her obstacles in terms of texture, color and composition. Yet it is when she learns to balance these visions on her own terms -- and to see them for what they are, or are not -- that Jane truly begins to see, and can realize her desires not as artistic renderings but as the composition that is her life.
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