Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Bronte
I read Jane Eyre while in college. Absolutely loved it. My favorite scene was after Jane and Rochester's wedding is interrupted with horrible news and Rochester begs Jane to stay with him in spite of everything. In my heart I was urging Jane to abandon her principles and relinquish her heart, soul and body to this man who loved her so dearly and whom she loved in return. She says, "... my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as feeling, and that clamored wildly. 'Oh, comply!' it said..." The lead up to this moment was several pages long and the reader was very much in compliance with Jane's feelings. But with all the strength she could muster, Jane determined, "I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptations; they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor. ... If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? ...Preconceived opinions, forgone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by; there I plant my foot."
Orson Scott Card said that "it is often easier to learn from fiction than from life". The lesson I learned from this work of fiction has served me well many times in my life.