Conceptions of Evil in Bronte & Dickens
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The struggle between good and evil is a primary subject in art and literature, and the conception of evil that is adopted by the artist determines the way that struggle is depicted. Novelists Charlotte Brontd in Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens in Hard Times show different conceptions of evil, conceptions that shape the way they portray their characters and the struggle of those characters with their own personal battle with good and evil. Evil for Brontd is a palpable entity in the world, deriving from a metaphysical and psychological framework and thus with a strong religious underpinning that infuses not only the acts of human beings but the very landscape within which they interact. That view of evil is not found in Dickens, where evil is rather a more truly human product. For Dickens, evil is to be found in the destructive institutions of society and in class conflict and the self-interest that colors social relations. Thus, while Brontd would see evil as something human beings must accommodate in their thinking and guard against in their behavior, Dickens sees evil as correctable by changing the nature of society and by eliminating ignorance. In each novel, the conception of evil held by the author is expressed through the experience of the protagonist, and both novelists emphasize that ideas about good and evil begin in childhood. In Jane Eyre, the character of Jane delves into the idea of love, the meaning of love, and the ability of the individual to find love a
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,--a good little child, whose soul is ow in heaven. It is to be feared the same could not be said of you, were you to be called hence (Brontd 27).
In her entire childhood, Jane does not know real love or warmth, and by the time she is out of school and on her own, she is seeking those qualities and trying to find the means to connect with other human beings. She is hired to work for Mr. Rochester, a man of some mystery about whom Jane knows little when she enters the household. In the attic is Rochester's lunatic wife; the floor below is empty and deserted except for the antiques, echoes of a bygone era when the Fairfaxes and the society of which they were a part still existed; and one floor down from that is the modern world of the rich landowner, though it is a life that has been stifled by the reality of the two floors above pressing down on it. For Jane, though, this floor has special meaning as the first place she could have to herself and as a hint of grandeur she has never known personally before:
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely around, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long-
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Approximate Word count = 1695
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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