"I Care for Myself"

The first time I read Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, I was greatly moved by it. It was many years ago now, but at the time I had felt greatly betrayed by someone in my life, so when I read about how Jane had also been lied to by someone close to her, I felt a great connection with her.

That book honestly got me through a rough patch. And there was a certain line that I remember underlining with my pencil, because it struck a chord with me.

Recently I've taken the book up again, and I have to say, reading this book through totally different eyes has entirely changed my perspective. I still enjoy the book very much, but things that meant a lot to me in the past don’t mean much to me now, and I relate to Jane in a totally different way than I did several years ago.

But that one line still struck me the same as it did back then.

There is a scene where Jane (spoilers!) has just found out that although Mr. Rochester was intending on marrying her, he keeps his mad wife locked up in his attic. In the scene he is begging and imploring Jane to stay with him, to marry him anyway. His argument is that his wife is crazy, beast-like, and is no wife to him. He merely keeps her out of obligation and because he doesn't want the public to know about his disgrace.

He tries to coax Jane into staying with him by saying, “You have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me.”

Jane thinks about it and considers that this is true. She’s an orphan. No one would ever know that she’s committing technical bigamy. And in her head, she says to herself, “Who in the world cares for you? Or who would be injured by what you do?”

And then came the line that has stuck with me my entire adulthood: Jane says, “I care for myself.”

Well, I care for myself too, Jane. No matter what happens in my life, at the end of the day, I am the only person responsible for my actions. I may not always have relatives close by to care about what I do or what I say. But I care. I might not have anyone to answer to. But I answer to myself. And there may be no one around to care about my morals or my choices. But at the end of the day, I care.

So in this world of agendas and political correctness, where the concept of feminism has been so misconstrued and blown out of proportion, a woman named Charlotte said in 1847 that it was okay for a woman to care for herself. She showed the world that it was okay for a woman to pick herself up, make her own choices, and live her own life—even when it meant losing everything, just so long as at the end of the day she kept her self-respect.

And for me, that means a lot.