Foils In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë uses Jane Eyre and Helen Burns as foils to each other in her novel, Jane Eyre. To the audience, the two characters appear to be complete opposites due to the stark differences in the philosophy they have on life and in their actions. Despite not having much in common, Jane and Helen become good friends and Jane even learns some very important life lessons from her friendship with Helen. Furthermore, Helen Burns acts as the representation of an ideal Christian child, which has the potential to receive a wide variety of responses from readers of different centuries. Charlotte Brontë used the qualities of Helen Burns that could be considered an ideal Christian child as a foil to Jane Eyre, thus highlighting the meaning of their
Helen taught Jane that there is nothing to fear in death and that death should be accepted and not grieved: “I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day…” (Brontë 77). Helen served as one of the biggest examples of loss Jane experienced, but instead of grieving over the loss like she usually did, Helen wanted her to accept the loss. This event was unlike anything Jane had experienced up until that point and it provided a different insight on life that she wouldn't have experienced without Helen. Helen, because of this insight on life and their strong bond, greatly impacted Jane as a
Jane learned many important lessons from Helen which includes accepting loss rather than grieving over it and putting her own morality above how she is perceived by others. While acting as a foil to Jane, she also provides the very important role of being a real teacher to Jane. These positive attributes to Jane would be well accepted in the 21st century due to their progressive nature. Overall, Helen acts as a moral compass not only for Jane, but for the audience as well because she led by