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AN ANALYSIS OF LOVE VALUES IN CHARLOTTE BRONTE’S NOVEL: JANE EYRE A THESIS BY
REG.NO. 050721002 SEKAR KURNIASIH
SUPERVISOR CO. SUPERVISOR
Drs. Syahri Saja, M. A NIP: 130365143 NIP: 13157047
Dra. Swesana Mardia Lubis, M. Hum
Submitted to Faculty Letters, University of Sumatera Utara in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra in the English Literature/Linguistics.
UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA FACULTY LETTERS ENGLISH DEPARTMENT MEDAN 2009
Skripsi ini berjudul “ An Analysis of Love Values in Charlotte Bronte’s Novel: Jane Eyre. Permasalahan yang diketengahkan adalah mengenai nilai cinta sebagaimana tergambar dalam novel tersebut. Nilai merupakan standar perilaku dan harapan melalui implementasi norma yang diyakini sebagai sesuatu yang benar dan berterima di tengah-tengah masyarakat. Dengan demikian cinta adalah ekspresi harapan atau keinginan untuk mendapatkan sesuatu berdasarkan nilai atau keyakinan yang sesuai dengan norma yang berlaku di masyarakat. Analisis tentang cinta dalam skripsi ini pada dasarnya melalui kajian tematik di mana ide utama dideskripsikan melalui penggambaran tokoh utama yang ada pada novel yang dibahas. Penggambaran itu sendiri memuat interpretasi melalui teks dan kemudian dianalisis untuk mengemukakan kebenaran. Dan teks diseleksi menjadi berupa kutipan yang menjadi data untuk menyatakan kebenaran tersebut. Dengan demikian skripsi ini menggunakan metode analisis deskriptif melalui pendekatan kajian tematik melalui karya fiktif Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre. Penggambaran tentang nilai cinta dalam skripsi ini merujuk pada implikasi pengorbanan, integritas dan perhatian. Cinta akan berarti bagi orang lain bila nilai tersebut dimaknai untuk satu tujuan yakni berbagi dalam hidup untuk mewujudkan harapan. Cinta ternyata menyatu dengan kesediaan berkorban, tanggung jawab dan perhatian untuk merealisasikan harapan untuk diri sendiri dan orang lain. Cinta akan berarti bagi orang lain bila didasarkan pada nilai yang berlaku dan berterima pada masyarakat.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................. i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................. iv
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION ...................................... 1
1.1 Background of the Analysis ...................... 1
1.2 Problems of the Analysis .......................... 2
1.3 Objectives of the Analysis ....................... 3
1.4 Scope of the Analysis ............................... 3
1.5 Significance of the Analysis ...................... 3
1.6 Method of the Analysis ............................. 4
1.7 Review of Related Literature .................... 5
CHAPTER II : GENERAL CONCEPTS OF LOVE ......... 6
2.1 The Meaning of Love ............................... 6
2.2 Types of Love ........................................... 11
CHAPTER III : ANALYSIS OF LOVE VALUES .............. 20
3.1 Jane Eyre’s Love .................................... 20
3.1.1 Jane Eyre’s Sacrifice ....................... 20
3.1.2 Jane Eyre’s Integrity ....................... 26
3.1.3 Jane Eyre’s Attention ...................... 30
3.2 Mr. Rochester’s Love ............................ 32
3.2.1 Mr. Rochester’s Sacrifice ................ 33
3.2.2 Mr. Rochester’s Integrity ................ 36
3.2.3 Mr. Rochester’s Attention ............... 39
“The standards that people share. These standards are used to judge whether something is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, right or wrong moral or immoral. …. Values are typically supported by specific norms, that is, more detailed directions for proper behavior. Norms are the more specific rules or definitions of how we are supposed to act in a given situation.”
From the quotation above it can be simply summarized that the sense
of love values is related to man’s belief of what is good or bad in the sense of
behavior morally. I could find out in the novel Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
such love problem which the values are debatable. Jane Eyre is unmarried
woman whose love is directed to married man, Rochester. Yet, the values are
well covered in the readiness of understanding sacrifice, integrity, and
attention without breaking the existing norms believed by the society. This is
the background as well as the reason why I chose my thesis title: An Analysis
of Love Values in Charlotte Bronte’s Novel Jane Eyre.
Problem of the Analysis
It is the main character as the focus of my analysis in this thesis. The
central point I want to propose is love values as expressed in the novel Jane
Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte. There are two main characters which are in
love; they are: Jane Eyre and Rochester. In reference to this, the problems I
want to analyze are:
(1) What love values do Jane Eyre and Rochester want to share?
(2) How are love values implied between Jane Eyre, a single young woman,
Of what love has positively given to be understood is the sense of
attention. It is attention that becomes cornerstone of human beings
relationship. Through great attention the love has makes men realize the
feelings and symptoms of love socially and morally. As what Goode (1977:
378) confirms that:
“Love is given great attention. In Western societies, and to some extent in other societies, people are socialized to believe that eventually they will fall in love. Children are teased about whom they love and are taught to recognize feelings and symptoms of love. They are told that love is important… Love is universal human potential, but it is highly disruptive of existing social arrangements.”
There is an important aspect of love that may bridge unity among
individuals. It is universal to understand and accept painfulness, awesomeness
and pleasure that love may transmit. Love teaches how to forgive the mistake
in order to get the missing part of humanity. Needless to say, the meaning of
love is reflecting how empathy gives amazing moment of self-recognition.
With love the real union of human relationship will stand strongly and
harmoniously.
Human love and affection are as important to the infant and child as
food and shelter are, and they remain important throughout life. A major
function of love meaning is to generalize wants and likes into affection and
care for the unity of togetherness. The lack of understanding of what love is
will harm the pieces of human development in terms of living together
socially. However, lack of love can ruin companionship in which many people
spent their entire lives in the communities they were born and raised. Many
goodness that is ideally wanted by human beings both as an individual and social
being.
Jane Eyre, an orphan girl of ten years of age, has been left alone by her
beloved parents. Their deaths are quite expensive for the little girl in which she
seems to trace the world of her own. She lives under the custody of her own uncle
and aunt, Mr. Reed and Mrs. Reed. Yet the situation is so much different for what
is expected by Jane is not like what a father and mother’s love is in true sense. She
is looked after because of pity and the consequence of pity may turn ups side
down when things are not running well.
The missing figure of parental affection can not be found in Jane Eyre’s
uncle family life. Especially after the death of the uncle, Mr. Reed, there is a great
change of life circle under the aunt’s domineering manner. Mrs. Reed is appearing
like a stranger to Jane. There is no motherly attitude that shows peaceful
appearance on her face. Jane Eyre really meets a frightening aunt who is ready to
ring the bell of anger and hatred.
Storge love which means parental affection is too far to reach for Jane
because her aunt is dry with love. It can be seen from the protest of Jane Eyre who
has been treated badly. Her protest emphasizes the unsaved feeling that she gets in
the family. She is blind in anger for that lack of attention that portrays the true
atmosphere of her aunt’s family. Jane Eyre blindly bursts out her words:
“… wicked and cruel boy!, I said. You are like a slave driver, you are like a Roman Emperor! I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero … (Jane Eyre, 1984: 4).
The conflicting situation gives impression how the interaction among of
family members is not well formed. Jane is in conflict with John, the boy of Mrs.
Reed. It is not trouble that becomes the point but the family life atmosphere.
Cynical words expressed by Jane Eyre imply her deep frustration to stay under
such a condition. She is really unsatisfied with the crack relationship as family.
What the context offers is the use of figure of speech simile in which Jane
equals the boy as ‘Roman emperor’ who is bloody thirsty of power and
uncivilized manner of being ‘slave driver’. Though she addresses the exclaim to
John, it is actually a culmination of anger upon the situation she has found in the
family. She can not stand being treated as an object of unfair treatment.
Further to notice in the context from the quotation is the knowledge
content of Jane Eyre’s remark. She reads the book and finds out the bad character
which is portrayed in Nero. It shows that she is a clever girl and criticizes the
unacceptable manner by comparing personal quality of a bad person the world has
known. The point of such bad manner is completely denoted with the modifying
words in the beginning as ‘wicked and cruel’. So all the qualities which are
addressed to John seems to protest the family atmosphere taught by Mrs. Reed,
the aunt.
Jane Eyre’s sarcastic words must be paid with punishment. She is regarded
wrong to judge the family sharply. As a consequence of that attitude, she is looked
in the dark room. The command of punishment comes from Mrs. Reed who has
felt so small of such bitter criticism. Then she exclaims:
“Then Mrs. Reed subjoined: ‘take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there. Four hands immediately lied upon, and I was borne upstairs” (Jane Eyre, 1984: 7)
must help others. That is the point that Jane Eyre wants to reach that is the
embodiment of empathy.
The implication of empathy touches every sphere of human feeling. As the
manifestation of love value, empathy is closely connected to the touch of human
recognition to identify what man should do within the concept of love. To say
simply, the love value will be completely nothing without the sense of empathy.
In such a moment, Jane Eyre dreams for that a little empathy from those who are
near to her. As a matter of fact, she meets the block for Mrs. Reed and her kids are
blind to have an empathy. As Mandell (2006: 133) says that:
“Empathy requires a finely tuned, intuitive sensitivity to other people, the kind that one finds in good fiction or poetry. Sometimes as we read a novel, hear a song, or look intently at a great painting, we have an amazing moment of recognition. We see our own thoughts reflected and are surprised that someone can touch us so deeply. It is this profound understanding of human condition, with its complex and ambivalent emotions, which explain why the plays of William Shakespeare, written in the late 1500s and early 1600s, can, still, bring tears to our eyes today”.
Empathy is clearly closed to tears that show sympathy upon something.
This something relates to human condition that offers recognition. The love value
can be made real when this recognition is place rightly for human rights. In the
great endeavor of Jane Eyre, she maintains strong to defend her own living. She
does not surrender to face the reality of being treated so badly. For Jane Eyre, it is
just a matter of little temptation. Had she given up her fate helplessly, she would
have met her downfall into pieces.
The impression of Gateshead Hall where Jane Eyre lives with her aunt is a
sort of terror for her. She can not stand living there if she uses her feeling, but she
realizes her being that she needs still Mrs. Reed. What things are made up has
changed the moment of introspection. In reference to this, she knows that the
place is a camouflage of hypocrisy. Yet, Jane Eyre is brave enough to show her
insistence by putting forward love more than revenge in her heart. She is able to
say that she loves her aunt and the family though they break her heart indeed. As
what she says then:
“I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children vassalage. If they did not leave me, in fact, as a little I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection with a thing that could not sympathize with ones among them; heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament in capacity, in propensities, a useless thing” (Jane Eyre, 1984: 11-12).
Jane Eyre’s remark ‘as little I love them’ versus ‘they did not love me’ has
shown how humble she is. She does not want to have confrontation for the
consequence of loving is to share what is shared. In this point, she is ready to
sacrifice her feeling for something better. Thus, she wins her own heart though
the bad treatment breaks her feeling. However, she fights back as hard as possible
by throwing her ego to achieve her goal.
Showing her deep love for Lowood, a place for all orphan and the poor to
be educated, Jane Eyre dedicates herself to be a teacher there. She accepts the
consequence of being the pioneer to reconstruct the situation of the school. She
wants to depend the poor’s fortune in order not to be treated badly as she has
experienced before. She sacrifices her love in form of dedication though she is
paid less than what she deserves to get. Yet, she is happy to do what she has to do
because it is the nuance of love that makes her ready to that. With love value in
terms of sacrifice which guides her to find her identity as a woman in particular
and human being in general.
3.1.2 Jane Eyre’s Integrity
The word integrity is not a matter of being honest only. It means more in
terms of union or unity for good achievement of love value. It provides great
opportunities for deep relationship, for loving, for sharing, for much that makes
life worthwhile. In reference to this, Covey (1990: 71) defines the integrity as an
embodiment of responsibility. It is a combination of two words: response and
ability which reflect values. He then adds as follows:
“The word responsibility ‘response-ability’ the ability to choose your response. People recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than product of their conditions, based on feeling”.
From the quotation above there is an integrated value of personality about
consistency in principle. That is why love implication needs a view of consistency
to look at things consistently. What in love is not really a matter of right or wrong,
but it is a concern of choice about the chosen value. So as the choice has been
taken there is no tendency for blaming. If it is done so the result will not be
frustration or downfall.
Jane Eyre has been accustomed to having open-heart habit. She loves the
honesty as a part of her integrity. She does not want to hide things that make her
unhappy. She thinks by telling the truth she has been freed from ties of lies that
make her oppressed. She has her own reason to express her own judgment to
defend herself. It can be seen when she expresses her own value judgment over
her aunt, Mrs. Reed. It goes:
“My uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think as so can papa and mamma; they know how you shut me up all long, and how you wish me dead” (Jane Eyre, 1984: 24).
What Jane Eyre wants to show is her great responsibility to look at the
things around her. She plainly tells the truth with her own consciousness. She
compares the fruit of love as in heaven that in contrast there will be hell for those
who do not. The quotation above gives clear point of judgment that the hell is for
Mrs. Reed because the aunt seems not to have a sense of integrity in love value.
Jane Eyre tries to imply the truth of agapic love which is centered on the
right touch of humanity. Love is not related to hatred and anger in negative sense.
Love value is a matter of consciousness to respect the truth the love offers. It is
practically implemented in the real life not just in the lips service. What is
important for love is to share the good values it contains generally.
The implication of love value in terms of integrity is very strong in Jane
Eyre’s personality. For her love is covered with honesty which invites the
opportunity for winning the life challenge. Love is not just a matter of waiting the
moment of pleasure. For Jane it is a respect for great value that is shown in the
proper attitude. Such a response can be seen when she refuses the love which is
given by John Rivers, a clergyman. He wants to take Jane as his wife but he has
no common value of love. Jane Eyre expresses her point of view as follows:
“I have refused to marry him and I have consequently displeased him. He has again and again explained that is not himself, not his office, he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labour, not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am
In reference to this, Jane Eyre can not deny her feeling when she expresses the
love to Rochester. She says:
“Mr. Rochester, if I ever did a good deed in my life, if I ever thought a good thought, if I ever prayed the sincere and blameless prayer, if I ever wish a righteous wish, I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth” (Jane Eyre, 1984: 441).
Jane Eyre’s honest remark ‘as happy as I can be’ to be a wife is a rigorous
admiration of the love values in terms of integrity and sacrifice. Jane thinks that
she is happy of her own choice to show her sacrifice to marry a married-man, a
blind man. Yet, she shows her integrity to love is related to give and to take in the
readiness to hold honesty. Honesty is more precious than love itself conceptually.
3.1.3 Jane Eyre’s Attention
Attention is a conscious reply to show care and respect to other people. It
is related to an honest response in order to understand what is to give and what is
to take. Since love is a matter of giving and taking through fair feeling, there is a
readiness to appreciate of love value in terms of attention.
There will be not be interaction among individuals when there is no
reaction of paying attention to one another. Interaction among people can increase
sense of love such as agapic love, storge love which have not focused on
biological needs. Love is universal to express a union among man through what is
shared such as human values or humanity in love. All these love elements can be
made real when there is great attention to each person.
Covey (1990: 19) confirms that attention is a part of attitude that
determines process of human interaction. Attention is a response to gain stimulus
for encouraging people to like and to recognize character as an ingredient way
through understanding life. He summarizes his ideas as follows:
“Some of this philosophy was expressed in inspiring and sometimes valid maxims such as ‘your attitude determines your attitude’, and giving attention to others is the same as smiling that wins more friends than frowning, and whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve”.
Jane Eyre seems to own such a good qualification as an individual. Even it
is just a story of a novel, the portrayal of Jane Eyre is so complete indeed. Her
great attention to care the things around her adds her value added personality. It
can be seen when she is still educated in Lowood. When disease attacks the poor
children there, she is brave enough to criticize the authorized Mr. Brocklehurst.
She thinks that it is not a matter of unsettled problem but the lack of attention to
take prevention. She comes to decide that preventive action can at least handle the
will be coming problem. She says:
“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god; nor he is a great an admired man. He is little liked here, he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as a favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covered, all around you. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you preserve in doing well, these feelings will long appear so much the more evidently for the temporary suppression” (Jane Eyre, 1984: 65).
Jane Eyre’s attention is really a manifestation of how she judges the role
of love she perceives. She can not stand looking at unfair treatment over the weak
house. Mr. Rochester shows his consequency of respecting love in the shape of
sacrifice. His sacrifice has shown how he places the love in its true sense of being
ready to share without looking at differences or weakness. The moment of such
terrible condition is portrayed as foolows :
“ Then when Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out. Yes, indeed was he, and he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of the beds and helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was standing, waving her arms above the settlements, and shouting out till they could hear her a mile off.... Mr. Rochester ascend through the skylight on to the roof’ we heard him called “Bertha! And the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement ( Jane Eyre, 1984 : 424 )
Mr. Rochester has dedicated his love sacrifice by trying his wife, but he
cannot save her. Both of them crash to the floor, but he is saved to live. As a cause
of the fall, he becomes blind and crippled. He cannot save his wife at all, she has
fallen so heavy and finally dies. That shows at one side that love is very expensive
and precious.
It is understood that agapic love is humanly valued. There is no barrier to
distinguish people only because of physical background or whatever the reason
should be. It is an application of religious value as well as love implication that
man is equally born to have his or her own rights. Bertha is mentally sick, but she
is a living person that needs love and to be loved. It has been shown by Rochester
with his great heart. Of what is left has been linked in love meaning that is to give
what should be given and to take what should be taken in the right proportion of
contains in love. In other words, the implication of integrity is pactically
humanistic orientation.
Rochester’s integrity is reflected in the way he protects his family without
any sense of degradation. He does not blame his choice of life to have a mad wife.
It is an accidental situation that he never wants to. On his principle he thinks that
love is important for human life. Human love and affection cannot be put aside in
order to gain companionship. Thus, he defines his love in terms of integrity on the
way he identifies himself with another person’s feeling and thought.
Mandell ( 2006 : 332 ) clarifies the core of integrity is being honest on the
self without considering the differences that exist among people. It is plainly pure
coming from the heart to look things from the good side. The further statement
about the integrity is :
“Integrity is the capacity to identify one’s self with another person’s feeling and thoughts to suspend one’s own judgment for the moment and feel with another. It differs from sympathy, which involves feeling sorry for someone but not necessarily suspending one’s own feelings to try to identify with another person”.
It can be summarized from the above quotation that the sense of integrity
is not a matter of feeling pity. It is a conscious attitude to express the equally
understanding over others. If there is mutual understanding which results from the
deep heart. The manifestation of integrity as love value is limpid wish to get true
love for achieving togethrness and peaceful life objective.
Mr. Rochester’s readiness to keep the love runs as the way it is has given
nuance of love in true integrity. Rochester’s heroic deed emphasizes the great
responsibility towards the meaning of love. It can be seen from the judgment
given to him because of his honest appearence. It goes as follows :
“ It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness in a way, he would not leave the house till everyone else was out before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. Rochester, Bertha, had flung herself from the battlement, there was a great crash, all feel...! He is now helpless indeed, blind, and a cripple ( Jane Eyre, 1984 : 425 ).
More than what is expected, Mr. Rochester never dreams that he must be
blind and crippled only because of love. He just wants to protect the unity of the
family life which is based on love before. It has his own destiny to get the wife
crazy because of sickness. It is beyond his limit to answer all the questions that
come around his life. He becomes aware of his weak response for being unable to
stop the fire. His wife’s death is nothing to do with his little concern.
The courage shown by Mr. Rochester has replied all the worriness that it is
he who makes his wife crazy. His way to save his mad wife by sacrificing himself
is fair enough to identify his integrity. There has been a dedication of love that
brings sense of good value to share. As a matter of fact, the value of love cannot
be calculated from the external appearence. It belongs to the very deep of the
heart.
Mr. Rochester never wishes to kill his wife in order to make him free from
travelling with love. He considers the pro and con of his behaviour. As an
individual, he is a social being too. Thus he must have some contact with other
people who are living together under the norms they have agreed. There is a block
that people may judge of wrongdoing in eference to love value. In contrast with
this, religious values are also boundary for people to make all things the way as
positively for attention means to give back what other needs. The implication of
attention is not materially oriented but it can be spritually applied. Mr. Rochester
has made himself honored for his great attention for the weak. Jane Eyre has given
her true response for it. She does not regret to marry the blind man, for a great
attention he offers is more valuable than the diamond. Jane says then :
“ I have now been married. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold my self supremely blest, blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as full as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate man I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. ... All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character perfect concord is the result” ( Jane Eyre, 1984 : 446 ).
The appraisal addressed to Rochester by Jane Eyre is not without reason. It
is a manifestation of love feeling that embodies hope of togetherness and care.
There is nothing the love may share except mutual undetanding to keep the value
sustainable. The sense of love will be true if there is linkage of being one to go
through ideal dream. Love sense is not a matter of expressing desire or passion for
one’s self satisfaction.
Rochester’s dedication with love is covered with the attention he has got.
In other meaning, Rochester has nothing to show his excessive appearence except
the attention. There has been a show of respect in the face of attention in the true
expression of love. The true sense of love in the sense of attention is to give a
reciprocal respect to one another.
Jane Eyre’s honest expression ‘I am my husband’s life’ gives clarity to
emphasize hos strong the value of attention in love. There won’t be meaningful
sense of love if there is no attention to know what is needed. Attention is