The protagonist and main character of Jane Eyre is faced with an interesting decision in the final chapters of the novel. Jane's cousin, the missionary St. John Rivers, offers to marry her and accompany her on a mission to India; however, her heart is with Mr. Rochester, the master of the mansion in which she worked. This poses a dilemma for Jane: If she abandons missionary work, it may seem like she is abandoning God. In this struggle between conscience and passion, passion is victorious, a victory that fits well with the rest of the novel. However, the element of consciousness that lost to passion may not have really represented consciousness in the first place. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay It is clear that Jane has made the decision of passion in her choice between conscience and passion in the final chapters. St. John continually tries to push Jane to come with him to India for missionary work, even saying, "Remember, if you reject [my offer], it is not me you are rejecting, but God." Jane, however, does not want to go with him; she wants even less to accompany him as his wife, because she does not love him. Indeed, she clings to someone else's love: “I heard a voice somewhere cry – 'Jane! Joan! Jane! » – nothing more… It was the voice of a human being – a voice known, loved and well known – that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and he spoke with pain and unhappiness, in an extravagant, strange and urgent manner. 'I'm coming!' I cried. “Wait for me!” " Clearly, this demonstration is that of a self-imposed illusion, an illusion reflecting her passion and establishing her desire to return to Rochester as a decision of passion, opposed to the decision of conscience to accompany St. John. Jane, however, is her own woman, and despite St. John's insistence – e.g. "The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated" – Jane's passion is unwavering. Returning to Rochester, Jane clearly made the decision of passion.St. John Rivers and Jane's potential trip to India with him represents a decision of conscience, but in reality it is something of a sham. St. John Rivers is not presented as the best and most moral character in the novel, by far. Jane actually describes him like this: “He had in fact no longer become flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, brilliant blue jewel; his tongue is a speaking instrument, nothing more. Such a description certainly does not evoke the image of a determined man of the Lord; this actually recalls Mr. Brocklehurst's description: "I looked up at a black pillar...the dark face at the top looked like a carved mask, placed above the well as a capital." Recall that Mr. Brocklehurst was a person of shameless hypocrisy, preaching modesty, poverty and self-inflicted shame and subsequently indulging in quite the opposite, as the narrator observes in the passage following: "'I must teach [girls] to dress with shame and sobriety, not with braided hair and expensive clothes...' Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They should have come a little earlier to hear his lecture on dress, for they were magnificently dressed in velvet, silk and furs... These ladies were received with deference by Miss Temple, as were Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst. The similarity in the descriptions of Mr. Brocklehurst and St. John Rivers certainly does not constitute a ringing endorsement of him.