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<\/a>[Editor\u2019s Note: This novel is probably being taught in 1,000 classrooms across the country as you read. . . but not like this!<\/em>]<\/p>\n In her novel, Jane Eyre<\/em>, Charlotte Bronte recounts the journey of a young governess, Jane, and her employer Mr. Rochester towards true love and happiness.\u00a0 Yet this journey is marked by imperfection because Mr. Rochester fears\u00a0giving up his secret concupiscence.\u00a0 Concupiscence, here, must be understood as an inordinate desire for the good: while Mr. Rochester wants to wed Jane, he conceals his insane (but very much alive) wife on the third floor of Thornfield Hall.\u00a0 This sin makes him question his humanity\u2014his dignity as a person;\u00a0he wonders\u00a0if he can find true happiness without surrendering his heart and all its secrets.\u00a0 He feels drawn to Jane because of her own self-knowledge and understanding of human dignity.<\/p>\n As Mr. Rochester and Jane explore this question of human dignity and concupiscence, the novel looks at Christ\u2019s teaching on adultery: \u201cYou have heard that it was said, \u2018You shall not commit adultery.\u2019\u00a0 But I say to you: Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.\u201d\u00a0 In Theology of the Body<\/em>, John Paul describes this line as Christ\u2019s appeal to the heart in which Christ calls man to reject concupiscence within his heart before he even acts upon it.\u00a0 As Jane and Mr. Rochester attempt to answer this call, they feel the effects of His next words, words that Jane paraphrases in her decision to flee Thornfield and a life of sin: \u201cIf your right eye causes you to stumble,\u00a0gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And if your right hand causes you to stumble,\u00a0cut it off and throw it away.\u201d Both Theology of the Body<\/em> and the novel show Christ\u2019s appeal to the heart, along with the challenge of rejecting concupiscence and finding salvation \u2013 especially for Mr. Rochester. Yet through Jane\u2019s understanding of human dignity, Mr. Rochester acknowledges and repents of his concupiscence, thus answering Christ\u2019s call and becoming what John Paul II calls \u201ca new man.\u201d<\/p>\n Because Mr. Rochester suffers under the burden of his secret marriage to a mad woman, he attempts to orchestrate his life in a world of falseness and concupiscence, desiring true love but unwilling to be vulnerable or honest with Jane.\u00a0 He knows that he is not fully human (though \u201cI have all my limbs and features\u201d) because he knows that he cannot give the gift of true love.\u00a0 John Paul explains the gift of love as the gift of self in which one gives entirely of himself for the good of the other, willing her happiness above his own.\u00a0 Because he hides himself from her, Mr. Rochester does not completely will Jane\u2019s true happiness.\u00a0 He is not fully human because he does not fully love.\u00a0 Yet Jane possesses the purity and love that Mr. Rochester yearns for: \u201cPurity is a requirement of love.\u00a0 It is the dimension of the inner truth of love in man\u2019s heart\u201d (TOB<\/em> 325).\u00a0 Jane expresses her pure love for Mr. Rochester in choosing to leave Thornfield upon the discovery of Bertha Mason, the mad wife.\u00a0 As her heart responds to Christ\u2019s appeal to the heart, Jane protects both her own purity and Mr. Rochester\u2019s hope for redemption because she refuses to partake in sin, though Mr. Rochester calls it love.<\/p>\n Jane\u2019s realization that she must leave Thornfield shows her response to Christ\u2019s appeal to the heart.\u00a0 She knows that to surrender to her desire to be with Mr. Rochester would be adulterous.\u00a0 John Paul writes: \u201cOne must draw the conclusion that \u2018adultery in the heart\u2019 . . . signifies a clearly defined interior act\u201d (TOB<\/em>, 232).\u00a0 This interior act is the sin of adultery itself; it is an act of the heart, the interior core of Jane\u2019s love as well as of her humanity.\u00a0 For this reason, Jane knows that she must exercise her will to reach into the depths of her heart and wrench out her desire to stay with Mr. Rochester.\u00a0 In her pain, she echoes Christ\u2019s words after His appeal to the heart: \u201cNo; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you; you shall, yourself, pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you, the priest to transfix it.\u201d\u00a0 She knows that Christ\u2019s appeal for purity demands an utter rejection of concupiscence; so if she is to answer this appeal, she must tear herself away from that which she loves.\u00a0 Jane must sever a part of her to protect herself and Mr. Rochester.\u00a0 Yet Jane remains pure in her love because she wills the true good for both herself and Mr. Rochester.<\/p>\n In losing Jane, Mr. Rochester finds himself alone \u2013 and subconsciously responding to Christ\u2019s appeal to the heart.\u00a0 His need to be alone shows his solitude before God wherein he finally recognizes his concupiscence and humanity, pointing back to John Paul\u2019s concept of original solitude.\u00a0 Repentance and redemption come when Mr. Rochester attempts to save Bertha from the flaming Thornfield.\u00a0 After removing the servants from the fire that Bertha starts, Mr. Rochester returns into the burning house at the most perilous moment of the blaze.\u00a0 As his home burns, so do his sins.\u00a0 The innkeeper recalls, \u201cWe heard him call \u2018Bertha!\u201d\u00a0 This moment signifies the culmination of Mr. Rochester\u2019s repentance because before, Mr. Rochester has seen Bertha as the object of suffering and the obstacle to his happiness.\u00a0 Yet in this moment of rescue, Mr. Rochester cries out her name, calling her to him.\u00a0 He finally acknowledges her dignity as a person.\u00a0 Bertha is no longer an object but a human soul.\u00a0 Regardless of his own position of danger, Mr. Rochester gives the pure gift of self to Bertha as he puts her good before his own, learning from Jane\u2019s own sacrifice of happiness.\u00a0 Mr. Rochester\u2019s redemption completes itself by pointing back the Sermon that John Paul emphasizes: \u201cIn the Sermon on the Mount, Christ does not invite man to the state of original innocence, because humanity has left it irrevocably behind, but He calls him to find . . . the living forms of the \u2018new man\u2019 \u201d (TOB<\/em>, 323).\u00a0 Not only does Mr. Rochester physically become a \u201cnew man\u201d through the loss of his limbs, but he spiritually severs his hand and plucks his eye as he repents.\u00a0 He answers Christ\u2019s appeal to the heart.<\/p>\n