Introduction

The results of personality tests, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Enneagram, find their way into ca­sual conversations, job applications, and dating profiles. Once these assessments analyze a subject’s “type,” the opportunity to scrutinize that subject’s relationships with other types arises. For example, the Myers & Briggs Foundation recommends using the system in premarital counseling “to identify areas of difference that may cause conflict.”¹ More radically, the most popular website for this test, “16Personalities,” has an entire category dedicated to relationships, including a “Romantic Ful­fillment” quiz for “what makes someone a good match for you.”² The Enneagram In­stitute website also has a page for learning about type combinations in relationships. Although this website assures its readers that “no pairing of types is particularly blessed and no pairing is particularly doomed,” the analyses still delve into the pros and cons of different matches.³ These evaluations can stimulate appraisal of a relationship before it even begins.

When recalling Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre, what often comes to readers’ minds is the controversial romance between Jane and Rochester. Through her storytelling, Brontë offers acute insights not only about Jane’s internal development but also about her interactions and choices involving other people. To accomplish her balanced treat­ment of human character and interactions, Brontë both engages with the modern science of her day and departs from it in certain critical instances. At these points of the novel, Brontë relies on the Roman­tic concept of sympathy, a subconscious connection between individuals. Although Brontë references phrenology throughout the fictional autobiography, she denies the extended view that phrenology can predict these relationships just as it can predict character. Brontë’s treatments of sympa­thy and phrenology set boundaries around the full reign of Victorian rationalism and inform the quality of Jane’s interactions with many critical characters. Through Jane Eyre’s friendships, romantic relation­ships, and enmities, Brontë illustrates that the popular Victorian science of phrenolo­gy cannot account for human sympathy.

Conceptual Background: Phrenology

To determine a person’s character, Victorian phrenologists would either manually measure a client’s skull or approximate measurements based on a client’s photograph. They would then provide a list of numbers indicating the strength of various qualities based on the size of each corresponding section of the skull. For example, an 1844 pamphlet by Mr. H. Lundie, a self-described “practical phrenologist and mesmerist,” suggests diagnoses for clients with different sizes of the organ of Acquisitiveness: “Small, labeled ‘2’: Indifferent about money, and very apt to spend it freely...Full, labeled ‘6’: Industrious, frugal, and economical, occasionally liberal...Extra large, labeled ‘10’: Extremely miserly, sordid, penuri­ous, and covetous.”⁷

The intensity of the quality was supposedly tied directly to the size of the designated section of the skull. In an age of alleged science and reason, phrenol­ogy provided a rational explanation for the often-mysterious nuances of human behavior and interaction.⁸ Today, examin­ing bumps on the skull to diagnose per­sonality may seem arbitrary and irrational, and even some contemporary opponents of phrenology mockingly dubbed the practice “bumpology.”⁹ English professor Mary A. Armstrong points out that some level of arbitrariness pervaded phrenolo­gy, which she calls “a conceptual structure available for the naturalization of any state, any position, any desire.”¹⁰ Phrenol­ogy had this unique ability to justify any perspective since the same forehead bump could indicate different characteristics depending on the particular phrenologist’s interpretation.

Nevertheless, many Victorian phre­nologists believed the practice to be grounded in science. A person’s phre­nological composition was supposedly developed before birth, alongside their character. In an 1832 British magazine, a medical doctor named David Uwins describes the process, “As this organ (the brain) developes itself particle by particle, and now pushes itself out in this direction, now in that, so does the structure of the bony case proceed in regular and unde­viating dependence; and thus the skull becomes not the moulder of the brain, but the brain of it.”¹¹ As a baby’s brain de­veloped in the womb, the sizes to which different sections grew supposedly indi­cated the intensity of that characteristic and would later be physically cemented and observable on the skull.¹²

Lundie’s pamphlet urges readers to consider phrenological diagnoses before marriage. In this way, certain qualities could be propagated in the alleged best interest of future society, and the severe effects of people’s phrenology led to even more racial discrimination than many British Victorians already sustained. Be­cause of the subjectivity of what certain protrusions or deficiencies meant, those with higher social status had power over how other people were perceived and in­evitably placed their own Western-centric features in a more favorable position.¹³ Decades before phrenology would be claimed by those publicly supporting Nazi theory of racial hygiene, Lundie promoted phrenology as “destined to effect a giant physical, and moral regeneration amongst our race . . . by far the greatest number of those evils attendant on frail humanity, would be avoided at every turn of life we should consult this infallible oracle.”¹⁴ Here Lundie partly refers to the use of phrenology in education, but also to its use in marital decisions. His language suggests complete societal reform through phrenological judgments.

In pursuit of either evolutionary “im­provement” or individual felicity, phre­nology made its way into matchmaking. One comedic narrative in an 1832 Irish journal depicts young adults comparing phrenological results in an excited flurry, with one character anxiously hoping that her favorite suitor should have positive qualities announced.¹⁵ Once phrenology reached North America, personal ads for marriage partners began to include phrenological information of either the writer or the desired respondent. Phrenol­ogy provided a particularly convenient avenue for personal advertisers in these matchmaking ads, as a series of numbers could fit into a newspaper column more easily than lengthy descriptions.¹⁶ Some requested that respondents return an offi­cial phrenological diagnosis for proof of character. Professor Carla Bittel suggests that matrimonial compatibility was based on similarity, as “strong organs in one person excited those in another, and this was then agreeable to both parties.”¹⁷ Dramatic disparities in organ size, especially with relational qualities like philoprogen­itiveness (the desire to have children) or amativeness (sexual drive), supposedly led to more discord in the relationship. Chasers of passion were perhaps repelled by this systematic approach of comparing numbers, but seekers of harmony were drawn to the guarantee of success that many phrenologists advertised.

“Success” meant not just marriage, but steady and safe marriage. One of the key concerns of the 1828 British temper­ance movement was to protect children from the violence or neglect of alcoholic parents, and the 1839 Custody of Infants Act demonstrated a Victorian-period in­terest in the morality of its children. This act, designated the “Robbery of Fathers Act” by its opponents, granted divorced women custody of children younger than seven, along with the right to fight for custody of older children as long as the mothers proved their virtue.¹⁸ Although proving virtue was an ambiguous process, this act expressed Victorian prioritization of children’s peaceful and moral upbring­ing, as one of its fundamental assumptions was that “family stability” was essential to civil society.¹⁹ The rise of phrenology in matchmaking was likely linked to this quest for virtue and peace in the family.

Conceptual Background: Sympathy

Brontë incorporates ample romantic passion into Jane Eyre, but she also estab­lishes a significant theme of Jane search­ing for kinship. Brontë expresses this idea through instances of sympathy: a flexible term rooted in the previous literary period of Romanticism (1780-1830). Philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) and essayist Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) broadly used the term to describe the mysteri­ous medium that unites people or mobs toward a common goal, so that sympathy “enabl[es] collective, contagious and inex­plicable forms of communication.”²⁰ More specifically, English Professor Emeri­tus John P. Farrell describes the kind of sympathy that Brontë uses in Jane Eyre as “the experience of bonds that unite physically separated people who sense a common unity.”²¹ In both cases, sympathy is a powerful, inexplicable, and invisible connection between different persons. In Jane Eyre, sympathy is expressed as an intense sense of kinship. It must be not­ed that this idea is wholly separate from the modern definition of sympathy as a sensation of pity that often leads to active compassion. Sympathy in Jane Eyre is unrelated to benevolence, just as unkind individuals can still feel kinship with spe­cific people.

Alongside Jane’s passion for Roches­ter, she also shares a strong and unchang­ing sympathy with him. She also has sym­pathy with her cousins, Diana and Mary Rivers; she notably does not have sympa­thy with St. John Rivers, and the isolated quality of their “relationship” could be more aptly described as antipathy. Brontë presents the sensation of sympathy as one of three phenomena—presentiments, sympathies, and signs—that collectively can be referred to as intuitive knowledge, or “gut” knowledge that escapes ratio­nal explanation. The mysterious quality of intuitive knowledge is significant to Brontë, as the narrator Jane proposes, “Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives; asserting, notwith­standing their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings battle mortal compre­hension.”²² The last clause of this quote implies a Romantic appreciation of mys­tery itself, and thus Brontë’s particular use of sympathy departs from a mainstream Victorian confidence in humanity’s ability to use reason to solve all puzzles.

Jane is warned against marrying Rochester by both “signs,” such as the splitting of the horse-chestnut tree after their engagement, and “presentiments,” such as her ominous recurring dreams be­fore the attempted marriage.²³ The warn­ings are caused and expressed by external circumstances, revealing a legal and possibly ethical barrier between Jane and Rochester that separates them despite their internal sympathy with each other. Although Jane is capable of acting upon these warnings before she actually dis­covers Bertha, Jane does not yet have complete information about Rochester’s situation and lacks real-world experience for what to expect from his many hints about his past. Instead, Jane relies on the one element of intuitive knowledge that is both integrated with her own emotions and definitive in its purpose: sympathy. Until she has full knowledge that equips her to make an informed decision, Jane discards both signs and presentiments in favor of sympathy.

Jane’s sympathetic connection with Rochester is best represented when Roch­ester pretends he is going to send her away to Ireland:

‘Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane? ... Because,’ he said, ‘I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you—you’d forget me.’

‘That I never should, sir: you know’—impossible to proceed.²⁴

Jane and Rochester’s sense of kinship is so deep that it involves a near transfer of identity, as Rochester tells Jane that her removal would physically hurt him. Lorri Nandrea proposes that “sympathy facilitates the misrecognition of otherness in re­lation to the same”; Rochester recognizes Jane as a necessary extension of himself, and in turn he sees himself as tied to her.²⁵

Both Rochester and Jane experience the phenomenon, so that neither recogniz­es the beloved as “other,” instead sharing a two-way sense of close kinship. This mutuality causes the sympathy of their relationship to stand out against the key romance in Emily Brontë’s 1847 Wuther­ing Heights. Whereas Emily Brontë’s her­oine Catherine Linton confesses, “Nelly, I am Heathcliff," insinuating a solitary absorption of self into her beloved, Char­lotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre eventually tells the reader after her marriage, “I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine.”²⁶ Jane’s sensation of sympathy both ex­presses her deepest desires and allows her to maintain a full identity even when those desires join her with another person. Presentiments and signs warn Jane of ex­ternal limits on her actions, but sympathy forms the underlying framework of Jane’s determining choices for her future.

Romantic Relationship: Rochester

Although Jane shares a common goal of finding family with Victorian readers who relied on phrenology for matchmak­ing, Jane relies on sympathy instead of phrenology for her life choices. Neverthe­less, Brontë still uses phrenological terms in her character descriptions and, at least within the context of the novel, suggests that the system is accurate through the revealed personalities of the described characters. For instance, when Jane and Rochester meet for the second time in Thornfield Hall, Rochester observes that Jane has been studying his appearance. Jane responds that she does not consider him handsome, and Rochester demands justification:

‘...Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?’

He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectu­al organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.

‘Now, ma’am, am I a fool?’

‘Far from it, sir. You would, per­haps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?’²⁷

Jane’s analysis of Rochester turns out to be accurate. Rochester’s “abrupt deficiency” where benevolence should have been manifests itself through his grudge toward his ward Àdele Varens, as he refers to her as “it” in his narration to Jane and makes it clear to Àdele herself that her presence is unwanted.²⁸ Even as Jane falls in love with Rochester, she admits, “He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description. In my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others.”²⁹ In addition to this lack of benevolence, Brontë also confirms Rochester’s “solid enough mass of intel­lectual organs,” as he shares fascinating conversations with Jane that the kindly and simplehearted Mrs. Fairfax cannot follow. Jane describes her experience with her employer: “I heard him talk with relish. I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he disclosed.”³⁰ Through Jane’s character diagnosis and Rochester’s subsequent behavior, Brontë suggests that phrenology could be an accurate system for determin­ing personality traits.

But Rochester’s phrenology, however accurate in diagnosing his flaws, does not lessen Jane’s sympathy with him. When she sketches his portrait at Gateshead, her cousin Georgiana Reed calls him “an ugly man,” but Jane only observes, “I had a friend’s face under my gaze.”³¹ Even though Jane has also admitted that Roch­ester no longer seems ugly to her, here she distinctly looks beyond the external, focusing only on his internal magnetism for her.³² At the same time, she sketched him accurately. At least to some extent, Jane is aware of his phrenology and the faults it conveys, but that awareness does not diminish her sympathy with him, and she still “cease[s] to pine after kindred” because she finds in him the familial connection she craves.³³ As she observes regarding Rochester’s harshness, “In­stead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare—to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets, and analyse their nature.”³⁴ Rather than separating herself from his faults, Jane is fascinated by Rochester’s mystery and guile.

With these qualities, Rochester is an archetypal Byronic hero: a man capable of great virtue and yet fallen in his actions, stormy in temperament, moody and un­predictable, and wildly attractive amid his vices. This character trope finds its origin in the poet and satirist Lord Byron (1788­-1824), whose influence on Romanticism was so monumental that some historians date the literary period according to his lifetime. The Byronic hero is conspicuous evidence of the Brontë sisters’ influence from the Romantic period, whose nov­els and poetry would have populated the Brontë family library. Charlotte’s love story Jane Eyre and Emily’s revenge story Wuthering Heights both rely heavily on the Byronic hero, as does Anne Brontë’s 1848 cautionary tale The Tenant of Wild­fell Hall.

The Victorian interest in phrenolo­gy and domestic harmony would lead to further contemporary disapproval of a Byronic hero like Rochester as a suitor. The problem is not that Rochester is im­perfect; in fact, at least in North America, many personal matchmaking advertisers included subpar phrenological results or gave themselves comically self-deprecat­ing pseudonyms to present themselves as more authentic.³⁵ The issue is not the presence of Rochester’s faults but rather the nature of the faults themselves. His unabashed narrative of past lovers makes future infidelity seem more likely, and even more unsettling are his later threats of taking advantage of Jane by force. These proclivities for both infidelity and violence foreshadow future marital conflict, increase the likelihood of child abuse, and are not the kind of qualities that British Victorians would want to be propagated in future generations. As a result, Rochester’s particular faults are further evidence of how Brontë gives Jane a culturally- and scientifically-unexpected match, relying instead on the mysteries of human sympathy. For some who believed that the goal of English fiction was “to teach and delight,” Brontë’s non-rational central romance between Jane and Roch­ester would seem like dangerous advice.³⁶

Regardless of the quality of Jane’s relationship with Rochester, Brontë establishes it as true to Jane’s character by foreshadowing her attraction toward Rochester as early as her childhood. The contrast between two of her childhood mother-figures indicates Jane’s early con­nection with those who are more intellec­tually-inclined. Phrenologically, the height of the forehead denoted intelligence, as higher brows supposedly indicated larger faculties of individuality (perception), language (eloquence), form (memory of shapes), order (organization), coloring (judgment of art), number (calculation), locality (memory of places), and tune (tal­ent for music).³⁷ Mrs. Reed, against whom Jane stands in stark opposition, has a “low brow,” and Miss Temple, toward whom Jane directs awe and admiration, has a “large forehead,” so Jane’s admiration aligns precisely with those whose phrenol­ogy indicates intelligence.³⁸ Furthermore, Brontë aligns these Victorian standards of intelligence with Rochester’s particular skills.

Examples include Rochester’s keen analysis of Jane’s paintings; his eloquence and details in narration; and his adeptness for music, which reveals itself both in his own performances and in his frustration with Jane’s musical mediocrity.³⁹ One critic in the 1850s, James Lorimer, under­stood Rochester as a love interest partly because of his intelligence; he simultane­ously criticized Jane as a heroine because her intelligence seemed to surpass her affection.⁴⁰ British Victorian society largely preferred women to have tenderness as their most salient characteristic, valu­ing the strength of their hearts over the strength of their heads.⁴¹ By making Jane not only attracted to intelligence, but also intelligent herself, Brontë crafts her two heroes as closer to equality.

The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.’⁴⁴

Calling the passions “true heathens” implies a religious aspect of the battle between emotion and reason. When Jane later tells Rochester, “I had rather be a thing than an angel,” she not only warns him not to idolize her but also implies a religious acknowledgment of her own human shortcomings, and Brontë suggests through Rochester’s analysis that emo­tions can be a part of those human short­comings.⁴⁵ Jane does not want to be his “angel in the house,” the expected Victori­an role of women to provide a moral cen­ter for the home; neither does she see her­self as fit for the role or want a male angel to match. Because of her self-awareness of vice, it seems that Rochester’s moral vices might strengthen Jane’s sensation of sympathy with him. However, Jane’s later experience with the Rivers siblings ulti­mately disproves this theory.

Two Friendships, One Not-So-Much: The Rivers

Jane’s interactions with her other suitor, St. John Rivers, augment the temp­tation to assume a correlation between vicious phrenology and Jane’s sympathy. Although Brontë does not specifically describe St. John from a phrenological standpoint, she does describe his appear­ance as having a classically “perfect” structure: “His face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his. [He had a] high forehead, colourless as ivory [a] lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone.”⁴⁶

Under phrenological standards, the description of classical perfection insin­uates perfection of character, and Jane reflects, “He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious.”⁴⁷ This obser­vation of their physical contrast and suspi­cion of an emotional response could imply that Jane has no sympathy with perfec­tion; she is too aware of her own external plainness and internal flaws. Victorian phrenologists would likely agree that Jane would not find the most happiness with an “ideal” man, since relational harmony was supposedly sparked by similarity of organs, and Jane is not an “ideal” woman.

Another mention of philanthropy reflects Jane’s earlier witty question to Rochester of whether he was a philanthropist, thereby encouraging a direct contrast between Jane’s relationships with Roch­ester and St. John. Jane assumes that St. John can help her find work, and St. John responds, “I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power, in a purpose so honest.”⁴⁸ By referring to philanthropy in conjunction with Jane’s phrenological di­agnosis of each suitor, Brontë effectively contrasts the two men and further estab­lishes the supposed accuracy of phrenolo­gy to indicate character.

Jane notes upon further acquaintance with her cousins, “As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him.”⁴⁹ St. John’s coldness separates her from him, whereas with Rochester, Jane had observed that “harsh caprice laid me under no obligation” so that his roughness and frankness had helped her feel at ease around him.⁵⁰ Even though St. John also breaches etiquette by staring with “unceremonious directness” at Jane upon first acquaintance, his rude­ness is distanced and subtly critical rather than forward and opinionating.⁵¹ When St. John coldly—and yet with technical courtesy—responds to Jane’s apology for rejecting him “that he had nothing to forgive: not having been offended,” Jane reflects that she “would much rather he had knocked [her] down.”⁵² Both Roches­ter and St. John treat Jane impolitely, but Rochester is blatant and thereby approach­able, whereas Jane feels helpless against St. John’s icy judgments and unresolved grudges because they are often only implied.

St. John is clearly imperfect but technically blameless, as he intentionally evades faults that can be easily pinpointed as dangerous. However, the sisters of St. John also avoid vices, albeit in a healthi­er way, and Jane still has sympathy with them. Jane considers Diana and Mary Rivers her family and is thrilled to discov­er that she is actually related to them, as “when I knew them but as mere strang­ers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration.”⁵³ When St. John advises that she marries instead of settling with them as a sister, Jane asserts, “I do not want a stranger—unsympathising alien, different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-feeling.”⁵⁴ This sympathy seems gen­uine, as Jane tells the reader that she and the sisters shared “perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles. Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection—of the strongest kind—was the result.”⁵⁵ Jane acts on her sympathy with Diana and Mary Rivers by sharing her inheritance, despite St. John’s warnings of her impul­siveness and indiscretion.⁵⁶ Sympathy is tightly tied to Jane’s deeply-held desire for kinship, and her resolution to act on that sympathy stands firm against every opposition but her religious doctrine.

Despite Jane’s antipathy with St. John, Diana and Mary are upheld as virtuous and described as having similar visages with their brother. When Jane first sees them through the window of Moor House, she obseres that they had:

‘..very fair necks and faces they were all delicacy and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call them handsome—they were too pale and grave for the word. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence.’⁵⁷

Several clues in this description link the sisters’ appearances to St. John’s: their uniqueness, gracefulness, paleness, and solemnity. Regarding internal qualities, Diana and Mary value virtue and knowl­edge just like St. John; unlike St. John, they appreciate the beauty of nature. The narrator Jane reflects almost hesitatingly, “I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters. Never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing si­lence.”⁵⁸ Her hesitant start to this analysis foreshadows the lack of self-confidence that St. John’s presence creates, later to an extreme level. Furthermore, Jane and the Rivers sisters all delight in the specific experience he eschews, the silence of the moors. This mutual appreciation of nature binds the female cousins together just as it excludes St. John. The Rivers sisters’ phrenological similarity with St. John, alongside the contrast of their relationship with Jane, illustrates Brontë’s view that phrenology cannot predict the presence or absence of sympathy.

Brontë provides some hints that St. John may not be living with complete ad­herence to his own true nature. He strug­gles with restlessness, as the narrator Jane comments, “Zealous in his ministerial la­bours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental se­renity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.”⁵⁹ Moreover, St. John wrestles with his attraction to the sweet yet frivolous Rosamund Oliver, as Jane observes him in the heiress’s pres­ence: “I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it.”⁶⁰

This moment when Jane discovers St. John’s draw to Miss Oliver is the only instance when Brontë refers to St. John in symbolic terms of fire (like Rochester and usually Jane) instead of ice, indicating an entirely different nature that he represses and that might have allowed him to sym­pathize with Jane.

Because sympathy is dependent upon the true natures of two different people, one person suppressing or altering their nature would prevent them from maintain­ing a strong connection with the second person. St. John’s mind is closed against the glory of nature and likely against the true direction of nature’s Creator; further­more, his assertion to Jane that to disobey him is to disobey God indicates a confi­dence in his own discretion that precludes a humble and listening ear before God.⁶¹ Diana even describes St. John as “inexo­rable as death,” implying little room for spiritual redirection or empathetic considerations.⁶²

This description is not the first time that Brontë has linked this term “inexo­rable” with death. When Aunt Reed dies, Jane visits her body and observes that “her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul.”⁶³ Jane and Aunt Reed have strong mutual antipathy, despite Jane’s late and vain effort to reconcile the relationship. During Jane’s childhood, Aunt Reed refuses even to attempt to understand Jane, instead shunning her until Jane can “acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition;” until that hypothetical point, Aunt Reed excludes Jane from “privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”⁶⁴ Aunt Reed wishes that Jane were something she is not; St. John both tries to be something he is not and then later expects the same from Jane.

Aunt Reed, St. John, and Diana all attempt to influence Jane’s choices. Yet only Diana, who admittedly is given a smaller part in the narrative, never disre­spects Jane’s will. Jane describes Diana as having “a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my nature to feel plea­sure in yielding to an authority supported like hers: and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will.”⁶⁵ When Diana suggests teach­ing German to Jane, she asks; when St. John starts teaching Hindostanee to Jane, he commands.⁶⁶ Although Jane “bends” at both times to the will of her potential teacher, she finds pleasure only in Diana’s active will over her instruction, whereas she reflects about St. John’s instruction, “I daily wished more to please him: but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adop­tion of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation.”⁶⁷ Not only does St. John sepa­rate himself from his inner nature and the external nature around him, but he also exerts control over Jane’s inner nature so that in his presence, she loses a part of herself. Jane has clarified that before she can enjoy submission, the two authorities that must consent are her conscience and her self-respect, but St. John disregards her self-respect by telling her who she should be.

Aunt Reed and St. John have an inexorable or unchangeable view of what should be, whereas Jane needs the free­dom to be just as she is. She observes that reaching St. John’s illogical standards for her “was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.”⁶⁸ Eye color is a fixed trait of nature; therefore, Jane calling her eye color “changeable” suggests that she can naturally adapt to different situations—but not to the extent that St. John demands. When Rochester had earlier confused the color of Jane’s eyes, calling them hazel instead of green, Jane excuses him for the reader by suggesting that “for him they were new-dyed [with love], I suppose.”⁶⁹ Jane’s sympathy with Rochester runs deep enough that she is willing to alter her perception of herself, but only enough to call her eyes “changeable.” St. John’s implicit demand of a more drastic change from green to blue is too severe for Jane to satisfy. She respects herself too much to change herself entirely, especially for someone with whom she feels no sympa­thy.

St. John and his sisters share similar appearances, and their phrenology sug­gests similarity in both intelligence and morality. However, in his efforts to pursue a martyr’s life in addition to a martyr’s death, St. John cuts himself off from the nature surrounding him, his own human nature, and the natures of the people clos­est to him. As Jane describes him to Di­ana, “He is a good and a great man: but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views.”⁷⁰ If Jane had shared sympathy with an unrepressed St. John, it would have only further established the idea that phrenology and sympathy are unrelated in Brontë’s world. However, even as the nov­el stands, the dramatic contrast between Rochester’s and the Rivers sisters’ char­acters shows that Jane can have sympathy with people regardless of the harmony between their phrenology and her own, and the disparity between St. John’s and the Rivers sisters’ relationships with Jane shows that a certain phrenological compo­sition cannot guarantee sympathy.

Science Abandonded

As sympathy and antipathy drift away from any justification via phrenol­ogy, Jane’s antipathy with St. John leads to a scene that Brontë describes in strict­ly nonscientific terms. St. John has just prayed a glorious prayer, and after Diana and Mary go to bed, he urges Jane once more to follow God’s supposed will by marrying him and traveling to India. The combination of his prayer and his sudden­ly gentle earnestness affects Jane, and she is caught up in the moment. She reflects, “All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealous, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their sublime mo­ments: when they subdue and rule.”⁷¹ The inclusion of the term “sublime” cannot be accidental.

As one of the key thinkers to support Romanticism, Edmund Burke (1729-­1797) was the first person to separate the terms “sublime” and “beautiful” thor­oughly in his 1757 philosophical treatise regarding those concepts. According to Burke, true harmony is not a worthwhile goal, as it would lead to mental inaction and ultimate misery. Instead, difficulties must be embraced.⁷² This conclusion starkly contrasts with the goal of some Victorians, like those using phrenology to find the most harmonious match between potential marriage partners. Burke de­scribes a desirable state of near-pain that stimulates the mind and is characterized by craving for something undefinable beyond the physical world. This craving feels like: “delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquility tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime. Its highest degree I call astonishment; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect.”⁷³

Brontë uses this word “sublime” stra­tegically in Jane Eyre, as four of the five instances hint at a convergence of the ma­terial and supernatural realms (with one satirical inclusion for Mr. Brocklehurst’s self-righteous public condemnation of the young Jane).⁷⁴ The sublime is anticipat­ed with a transcendent dread, felt by the human spirit and separate from human reason. By applying the Romantic sense of the sublime to St. John, Brontë inten­tionally departs from a scientific Victorian explanation for his influence over Jane. His influence is not formed from sym­pathy, like the inevitable influence that Rochester and the Rivers sisters have on Jane’s character development. Although both are subconscious and nonrational, St. John’s influence overpowers Jane’s nature instead of accepting and interweaving with it.

In this particular scene when Jane nearly caves to St. John’s request, Brontë includes multiple terms that insinuate magic, which has traditionally been opposed to science. Jane describes St. John as her “hierophant,” an interpreter of mysteries in ancient non-Judeo religions. Assigning St. John this role suggests his supernatural power over Jane, especially as she “stood motionless under my hi­erophant’s touch,” as if she can no longer act according to her own will.⁷⁵ Jane has felt this mystical power before, during St. John’s previous effort to convince her. His entrancing responses in this conversation seem to have blocked Jane’s entire faculty for self-awareness:

‘If they [people fitted for missionary work] are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it? ’

I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell. ‘And what does your heart say?’ demanded St. John.

‘My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,’ I answered, struck and thrilled. ‘Then I must speak for it,’  continued the deep, relentless voice.⁷⁶

At the beginning of this quote, Jane remains true to her belief in the power of individuals to interpret God’s call for their lives. She has traditionally followed her own judgment to determine where God was leading her, such as telling no one when she advertised herself as a govern­ess in pursuit of a new “servitude” after teaching at Lowood.⁷⁷ This independent behavior dramatically contrasts the idea of accepting a “hierophant” to interpret God’s will for others. However, by using words like “awful charm” and “spell,” Brontë implies that St. John overpow­ers first Jane’s rationality and then her self-awareness, as Jane ultimately claims her heart is “mute.”

Only because of St. John’s mystical influence is Jane tempted to succumb, even while acknowledging the fatefulness of such a decision: “If I join St. John, I abandon half myself.”⁷⁸ St. John uses his power to disregard Jane’s self-respect and spiritual agency. That antipathetic power controls Jane’s emotions in a way that is inexplicable via modern Victorian sci­ence. Instead, Brontë relies on Romantic ideas of the sublime, emotionality, and mysticism to characterize the contrasting natures of Jane and St. John. Immedi­ately after St. John’s ultimate attempt to persuade Jane, Brontë takes Romantic mysticism to the extreme with Jane’s sensation of Rochester calling her from miles away. This instance, confirmed later by Rochester actually having called her at that time, is the boldest manifestation of human sympathy demonstrated in the novel. Brontë seems to dare her readers to attempt to explain it rationally.

Conclusion

Brontë wrote Jane Eyre during the reign of phrenology as a popular science. Although she incorporates phrenology throughout the novel to describe and even predict character, Brontë adamantly de­parts from the view that phrenology could predict relationships as well. Depending instead upon the previous literary period of influence, Brontë uses Romantic ideas of sympathy and the sublime to frame interactions between humans as scientif­ically inexplicable. Jane Eyre provides insight into the transition between cultural values of the Romantic and Victorian pe­riods, as Brontë grapples with the simulta­neous appreciation of human mystery and the desire to solve its puzzles. With the final juxtaposition of St. John’s spell and Rochester’s summons, Brontë establishes without question that certain interactions between her characters are too mysterious to understand logically. For Brontë, phre­nology might explain one individual’s per­sonality in isolation; however, the sense of kinship that draws two people together against impossible odds and distances defies all rational explanation.

 

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