jane eyre - complete

Tragic love stories, they somehow stir my inner core, but was this one really tragic?  If two lovers, after all has been said and done, find their way back to one another, isn’t that bliss? I won't comment on all that transpired between our intelligent Miss. Eyre and bold Mr. Rochester, but here's the ending wrapped up in a nice little bow for you to envision for yourself.  

Mr. Rochester, Jane's one love, her master, her hero, was rendered blind and armless because he climbed to the roof of his burning home to save a woman; this woman proceeded to jump off the roof and kill herself. This all happened while Jane was absent.  She had left Mr. Rochester because he was dishonest...oops, he just neglected to tell her that he already has a wife, who is actually locked up in the attic of the very house where they live and is the very same woman who jumped off the roof (she was not mentally sound).  Only classics are able to tell such an extraordinary story with such believability and eloquence. Modern day language could never get away with this, or it could, but minus the grace and beauty.

A year passed since Jane left her post as Governess for Mr. Rochester. She found her way in the world and discovered her talents, her voice and realized what she wanted most. They say time heals all, but Jane couldn't forget Mr. Rochester.  She thought of him often and this, or should I say "he", is who she wanted most.

She returned to the home where she experienced feelings of love for the first time.   She wanted to see the one man who suited her.

This passage is so rationally romantic:

"...To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.  We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.  All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character - perfect concord is the result." (p. 491) 

On her journey back to the home where she was a governess and where she first started to blossom into a woman, she learns of the tragedy of loss and death that had occurred just a few months after she left Thornfield Hall.  When she arrived, she watched Mr. Rochester, without his knowledge, and observed her hero as a blind and crippled man.  Her heart hurt and she wanted nothing more than to take care of him, to be his eyes and to be his guide. She loved him all the same, even more. She was finally fulfilled.

So, albeit, there are many moments, scenes, events that have been left out, but would you call this tragic? Or does your heart feel satisfied?

They went on to marry, have a child, and slowly, his sight began to appear... in one eye.

Here are some passages to leave you with, if only words were spoken like this today – 

"I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth." (p. 490)

"To be privileged to put my arms round what I value - to press my lips to what I love - to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice." (p. 485)