I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. 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.
This, one of the final passages of
One might also argue that Jane relinquishes her powers of thought and expression—two characteristics that have defined her for most of the novel. Suddenly, the otherwise imaginative Jane equates her “thinking” to her conversations with Rochester—she even finds the conversations “more animated.” Similarly, although ten years have elapsed since the wedding, the otherwise eloquent Jane suddenly claims that she is unable to find any “language” to “express” her experiences during this period.
Other critics interpret this passage in a more positive
manner. It can be read as Jane’s affirmation of the equality between
her and Rochester, as testimony that she has not “given up” anything.
The passage is followed in the novel by a report on St. John Rivers.
Jane writes: “his is the spirit of the warrior Greatheart . . .
his is the ambition of the high master-spirit. . . .” (Greatheart
serves as guide to the pilgrims in Bunyan’s