Autoeroticism, Solitude, and Christianity in Jane Eyre

Abstract

Hiding, retreating, or fleeing from surveilling eyes and coercive religious discourse, Jane finds safety only within herself. Designating spaces for self-solace, rumination, and prayer, her absolute solitude is augmented by erotic and religious energies. These autoerotic and secluded moments, usually following some form of mistreatment, crippling confusion, or distress, help her to ultimately develop both self-possession and religious devotion. Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen Burns, St. John Rivers, and Edward Rochester offer various depictions of coercion and irreligion that reinforce Jane’s need for safe spaces and independence. This article partners with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl” to highlight the erotic and religious vitalities in spaces of complete inaccessibility: the alcove and corners of Jane’s childhood or the couches and bedchambers of her adulthood. She forces herself and her self to be utterly, rebelliously, out of reach—out of range of religious authority’s discipline and masculine control. In these common but private places, Jane’s Christian pilgrimage is punctuated by solitary gratification—her solitary communion—which unites religious-driven pleasure in attaining self-possession through a self-service akin to masturbation. Parson-less and self-motivated, Jane redefines the nineteenth-century Christian woman.