Jane Eyre Forgiveness Quotes

No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room: it only gave my nerves a shock, of which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Ms. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering. But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 3. Jane muses on the day she was disciplined as a child by Mrs. Reed who had her locked in the red room. Though it left her with pangs of mental suffering to the present day, she feels she ought to forgive Mrs. Reed. Her aunt didn’t know what she was doing and was just trying to fix her bad inclinations and make her a morally better child, she says.

It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 6. Helen Burns is speaking to Jane after Helen has been flogged on the neck by teacher Miss Scatcherd brandishing a bundle of twigs. The rebellious Jane says that had she been struck by that rod, she would have grabbed it from the teacher’s hand and broken it under her nose. But Helen is a religious girl who believes in the Bible’s message of turning the other cheek and showing Christian forgiveness to your enemies. She becomes Jane’s best friend at Lowood.

If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should – so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 6. While her friend Helen subscribes to the doctrine of turning the other cheek when mistreated, Jane is less forgiving to those who are cruel and unjust. When people are wicked she believes in striking back hard at them in order to teach them a lesson.

But I feel this Helen: I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me. I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 6. Jane’s childhood struggles with the cruel Reed family have left her with an unforgiving and rebellious nature. While she will love those who love her, she vows to resist those who unjustly punish her.

What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 6. Helen Burns challenges Jane about holding on to her hatred and bitterness towards Mrs. Reed and John Reed. She advises Jane that she would be happier if she let go of her anger, as life is too short to be nursing grievances about the wrongs done to us. Helen is a devout Christian who symbolizes the Christian ideals of tolerence and forgiveness.

I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest – a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 6. The pious and stoical Helen Burns explains her religious faith to the passionate and rebellious Jane. Continuously victimized by her teachers at Lowood, Helen accepts her punishments without protest, confusing the more feisty Jane. But Helen is able to distinguish between the sinner and the sin, believes in forgiveness and looks forward to Heaven as a welcoming place and her true home. So Helen is not affected by the mistreatment of teachers and the harsh conditions at Lowood. Instead she lives this life “in calm, looking to the end” – here she is referring to the Christian goal of getting to Heaven, as well as foreshadowing her own death.

The well-known face was there, stern, relentless, as ever; there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and hate! And how the recollection of childhood’s terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and kissed her; she looked at me…I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again; I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet; had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated; Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me, so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me – her feeling toward me – was unchanged and unchangeable.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Jane looks back on her visit to the despotic Mrs. Reed on her deathbed. Years have gone by since she last met her aunt. Jane is prepared to forgive the childhood terrors and suffering she endured at the hands of the imperious Mrs. Reed. But her aunt remains unchanged. After requesting Jane to come to her, the dying Mrs. Reed shows no love for Jane and is icily cold towards her.

Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane – the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear, as if an animal that I had struck or pushed has looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Mrs. Reed makes a deathbed confession to Jane. When John Eyre wrote to Mrs. Reed three years earlier about his wish to adopt his niece Jane, this news was kept from Jane by Mrs. Reed. She admits doing this because she hated how Jane treated her as a child and didn’t want to lift her to prosperity. The unforgiving Mrs. Reed wrote to Jane’s uncle to say that Jane had died of typhoid at Lowood.

She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus: – “I tell you I could not forget it, and I took my revenge; for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead…You were born, I think, to be my torment; my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. The dying Mrs. Reed admits to taking out her revenge on the orphan child Jane by sabotaging her adoption by her financially secure uncle. Rather than see Jane move to a life of comfort, Mrs. Reed told her uncle that Jane was dead, thus denying the one thing Jane wanted in life – family. Mrs. Reed never forgave Jane for the way she turned on her as a child.

“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s and be at peace.”
Poor, suffering woman! It is too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind; living, she had ever hated me – dying, she must hate me still.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Even as Mrs. Reed remains vengeful on her deathbed, confessing that she kept the truth about Jane’s uncle and relatives from her, Jane forgives her. She urges her to seek God’s forgiveness and find peace. Mrs. Reed’s vindictiveness and hatred of Jane has brought more suffering to herself than to Jane. Jane’s essentially good nature allows her to rise above such destructive emotions and feelings.

Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. Rochester pleads with Jane to forgive him after it is revealed that he is already married. The passage contains a Biblical allusion to 2 Samuel 12:3 – “The poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.”

Reader! – I forgave him at the moment, and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and, besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien – I forgave him all; yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart’s core.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. After Jane’s wedding to Rochester is interrupted by the announcement that he already has a wife, he asks will she ever forgive him. Jane sees the deep remorse and love in his eyes and she forgives him – not in words, but in her heart. However that doesn’t mean she is going to remain under the same roof with him.
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