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How Does Bronte Present St. Rivers In Jane Eyre

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a rather famous book. It is know for it’s great relationship advice and its continuous theme of social class. During the book, Jane finds out that her love, Rochester, had a past wife. This information enrages her and she runs away to a church. At said church, she meets St. John Rivers. St. Rivers is an interesting character, to say the least. He is not a saint by any means.
St. John Rivers is a very attractive man. He has moral and intellectual superiority. He has a “straight, classic nose; quite and Athenian mouth and chin.” He has beautiful blue eyes like the ocean, and golden hair. Though he has the physical features of a god, his personality isn’t the greatest. St. Rivers is cold-hearted, and might as well be “no longer flesh, but marble”- like a Greek statue of Apollo. His personality is what Jane wishes to be. …show more content…
Rivers asks Jane to marry him, and she is utterly appalled by the mere idea of marrying him.He does not love her, and that is what is the most disgusting to Jane.The coldness of St. Rivers is worse than any other thing she has experienced, even Rochester’s raging.Jane knows that the marriage would involve sex, even though there was no passion between the two, and she doesn’t want to put herself through that.Jane asks if the readers know the “terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions?” Marrying St. John Rivers would traumatically erase Jane's identity and douse her passions for life.
St. Rivers is utterly confused as to why Jane would deny his marriage. He knows that most women drool over him. So why would he be rejected? He wars against Jane’s rejection. Instead of asking her to help him in a mission love in India, he “enlists” her to join the christian mercenaries. Rivers loves Rosamond Oliver, yet she would not be a good candidate for him. He apparently has no human emotion and would rather marry someone he can “influence efficiently” and “retain absolutely,” rather than someone he

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