When Jane finds out that her fiancé, Edward Rochester, is already the husband of a mad woman living in his attic, Jane faces the ultimate moral dilemma: accept him as a lover, in the way he wants her to, or leave him entirely.

Here is Jane’s own reflection when this truth is revealed to her:

I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals.  Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning!  Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol.  One drear word comprised my intolerable duty—“Depart!”
“Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—‘I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.’”
“Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.”

After this declaration, Jane flees from her post and spends a devastatingly bleak time on the moors before gaining the wherewithal to start a new life away from him.

Here is how Erin Blakemore, author of The Heroine’s Bookshelf, described Jane’s journey after leaving Rochester.  “…Charlotte and Jane get down to the nitty-gritty of what can sustain a person through a personal crisis of epic proportions.  Jane the person is stripped down piece by piece, voluntarily turning her back on her relationships, her past associations, and even her name…Faced with the crisis of a relationship gone horribly wrong, one that threatens both her place in society and in the eyes of God, Jane refuses to take the easy way out.  Instead, she chooses certain misery, shedding that which does not serve her principles. ‘Life, however,’ she reflects, ‘was yet in my possession; with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities.  The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.  I set out.”

Jane’s steadfastness, moral courage, bravery and – most of all – respect for herself, is unparalleled.

Her story is being retold this March in a new film version starring Mia Wasikowska (Alice, in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland) and Michael Fassbender (Hunger).

To vote for Jane in our Ultimate Classical Heroine Contest on Facebook and make sure she is included in the Top 8 next week, click here!