The fifth and final location in Jane Eyre is Rochester's forest house Ferndean. Here Jane is reunited with her great love and finally allowed to live happily ever after.
The Mysterious Voice
So what prompts Jane to leave her cousins at Moor House? She has become close to Diana and Mary, and has begun to work wonders at the village school she is running; she has also received a proposal from St John to accompany him to India as both his missionary co-worker and his wife. Jane’s initial reaction is that she will go with him but not as his wife; her resolve has however begun to weaken until the following happens in chapter 35:
"Jane! Jane! Jane!"—nothing more.
"O God! what is it?" I gasped.
I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room—nor in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air- -nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.
"I am coming!" I cried. "Wait for me! Oh, I will come!"
This section of the novel has been much criticised, but such an event is much in keeping with the novel: Jane has already had prophetic dreams, and been led by a mysterious light to find her cousins; this would simply seem to be her soul-mate making a telepathic connection with her in his hour of need.
Return to Thornfield
For of course, Rochester does need Jane now: she returns to find Thornfield to find there has been a terrible fire, and “the lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void” (chapter 36). Mr Rochester has survived; Bertha has not – it was she who started the fire, and then flung herself off the roof. Conveniently then, the wife is out of the way; not only this, but Jane discovers from an inn-keeper that Rochester has behaved nobly, losing his sight as well as a hand in trying to save his wife.
He is now to be found at Ferndean, a secluded house in the forest, and as Jane makes her final journey of the novel to find him we realise how greatly she has changed. As well as proving her inner strength, by leaving Rochester the first time and by rejecting St John’s marriage proposal, she is now in a far stronger position materially – she has a family now, as well as her own money. This is the vital difference in Jane that allows her to return to Rochester: she no longer fears their marriage will be unequal.
Reader, I Married Him
Indeed, Jane is now perhaps the stronger of the two: Rochester’s strength has gone, likened to “the caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson” (chapter 37). Here Bronte’s sense of right and wrong can be clearly seen: Rochester has done wrong in the past, unlike Jane, so although he does gradually regain some of his sight he will always bear a permanent reminder of his previous misdemeanours.
The opening of the final chapter says all we need to know about the newly confident and independent Jane: “Reader, I married him”. Not only has Jane earned her happy ending, but she has done it on her own terms.
Read about Jane's experiences at Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield and Marsh End.
