Providence: Interpreting Charlotte Brontë’s Depiction of God in Jane Eyre

John Michael Schaff

Resumen


When Jane Eyre was first published in 1847, it was interpreted by many readers as an anti-Christian text. While this interpretation is less popular in today’s scholarship it has not been entirely abandoned. Far from being actively opposed to Christianity, however, Jane Eyre is a fundamentally Christian work that explores the nature of God’s love for human beings. Charlotte Brontë was a woman plagued all her life by fears of sinfulness and damnation, but she ultimately believed not in an exacting God of cruelty but in a loving God who wills the happiness of all people. Brontë wrote Jane Eyre in order to persuade her readers, and to some degree herself, to adopt this view of God.


Palabras clave


Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, religion, God, gothic novel

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Referencias


Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. 1847. Penguin Classics, 2006.

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Peters, John. “‘We Stood at God’s Feet, Equal’: Equality, Subversion, and Religion in Jane Eyre.” Brontë Studies 29, no. 1 (2013): 53–64. EBSCOhost.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/kh.2026.0.98-110
Date of publication: 2026-10-20 13:44:16
Date of submission: 2026-04-01 15:04:47


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