A successful Lent; the happiest ending

By Monica Perry

The novel, Jane Eyre, is a melodramatic one. In the story, a downtrodden soulful girl named Jane meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester. They quickly discover that they have been meant for each other from all eternity, and decide to promise "to feed forever from the same trough" (P.G. Wodehouse).

Just as they are about to exchange this promise at the altar, it is discovered that part of Mr. Rochester's mystery is that he already has a wife, a mad one, to be precise, whom he has been keeping locked away in the tower of his spacious house. There follows a temporary separation for the lovers, until fate works out the nitty-gritty details: the mad wife dies when she burns the house down. Very neat.

As an unabashed fan of Jane Austen's novels (the best of which are Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility) I was astounded to read a criticism of her work by Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Bronte wrote: "She (Austen) ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her.... Even to the feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition.... What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study; but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death, this Miss Austen ignores."

Rightly so, I would add.

Bronte finds Austen's work lacking in drama and profundity. She couldn't be more wrong. Austen's genius lies in her ability to intricately delineate the lives of people who manage to improve somewhat in virtue. Pride and prejudice are overcome. Sensibility learns sense. The couples thus improved end up uniting for life. They have merited each other. They have learned to understand each other. There is no question of their not being entirely happy together. One could not ask for a better love story.

Good drama is found not so much in the movement of our fickle passions, or in mad wives locked away in distant recesses of the house, but in the progress in, or rejection of, virtue by the main characters. Growth in virtue brings about a happy ending and produces a comedy. Rejection of virtue, sometimes only in a very small degree, can bring about tragic results.

This is good drama, because it accurately portrays the human condition. Few of us would find ourselves in Jane Eyre's shoes. All of us could use less pride and more sense.

Saints are walking miracles. For the rest of us, it is a dramatic thing for us to grow even a little in virtue. It is a dramatic thing to recognize we are wrong and begin to change our lives accordingly (Pride and Prejudice). It is a dramatic thing for us to be sorry for an unkind remark we have made, however witty its content, and however much it relieved our feelings (Emma).

Virtue does not exist outside the human heart. It is there that the greatest battles have been fought and the greatest victories won. Each would provide ample material for a novel.

We Catholics believe that each successful battle with the worst of ourselves testifies to the grace of God, which alone is responsible for accomplishing any of these little miracles in the human heart. We are not disheartened by this, but filled with hope, because we know that this grace, or help, is readily available to us. We glory in the cross of Christ.

When the soldier pierced Christ's heart with a lance, we are told, "there immediately flowed forth blood and water." The blood and water flowing from Christ's side have traditionally been understood to signify the sacraments of the Church. These sacraments make the cleansing power of Christ's Blood present to us. Our faith teaches us that making good use of them will ensure a successful Lent and the happiest of endings.