I think one of the funniest things about Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice is that people act like Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet are complete opposites.
They’re really not.
Yes. On paper, they couldn’t be more different.
Elizabeth is witty. Jane is reserved. Elizabeth grew up surrounded by family. Jane grew up alone. Elizabeth’s story is bright, social, and full of banter. Jane’s is gothic, lonely, and haunted. But underneath all of that, they’re fighting the exact same battle. Neither of them will let someone else decide what their life should look like.
“I refuse to marry someone I do not love wholeheartedly, and I refuse to do something just because society says so.”
Elizabeth refuses Mr. Collins. Not because he’s poor. Not because he’s cruel. But because marrying someone she doesn’t love would mean giving up the right to choose for herself.
Jane refuses St. John. Not because he isn’t respectable. Not because he isn’t kind. But because she knows marrying him would slowly erase who she is. And I think that’s where the two novels quietly agree.
People tend to describe Elizabeth as someone who marries for love. I don’t think that’s entirely true. She marries for respect. Love follows.
The reason she rejects Darcy the first time isn’t because she doesn’t love him. She doesn’t know him well enough to love him. She rejects him because she believes he lacks the qualities she refuses to compromise on. Only after Darcy changes—and only after Elizabeth realizes she judged him unfairly—can they meet as equals.
Jane follows the same pattern. People love talking about Rochester’s redemption. But I don’t think Jane Eyre is actually Rochester’s story.
It’s Jane’s.
Every major choice she makes is a refusal to lose herself. She leaves Gateshead. She leaves Lowood. She leaves Thornfield. Not because she’s running away. Because she refuses to compromise the one quality that defines her. Throughout the novel, Jane is self-affirming even amid the gravest adversities. That quality is impossible to repress. Even when she loves Rochester, she refuses to become his mistress because she knows that love at the cost of her own principles isn’t really love.
That’s what makes both novels feel surprisingly modern.
Neither heroine allows love to become the loss of self.
And I think that’s why both women are constantly described as “stubborn.” It’s funny how literature has a habit of calling women stubborn whenever they insist on having standards. Elizabeth is criticized for rejecting Mr. Collins and initially refusing Darcy. Jane is told she’s foolish for leaving Rochester and later for refusing St. John.
From everyone else’s perspective, they’re throwing away perfectly good futures. Security. Status. Comfort. From theirs, they’re protecting something far more valuable.
Themselves.
Both novels quietly argue that losing yourself is far more dangerous than losing an opportunity.
Maybe that’s why Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet have endured for centuries and are still being shown in media today. Not because they found the perfect man. But because people almost always succumb to peer pressure and allow society to reshape their opinions.
They don’t.
Jane never lets anyone else’s expectations define her conscience. Elizabeth never lets anyone else’s expectations define her judgment. They stay strong and keep to what they believe in, through thick and thin, no matter what.
They don’t become admirable because they fall in love. They become admirable because they refuse to become someone else in order to be loved. And maybe that’s the real romance both novels are trying to defend. Not finding the right person. But refusing to become the wrong version of yourself while looking for them.
@bethanydelleman thoughts?
This is beautiful.
