‘I Began to See’: Biblical Models of Disability in Jane Eyre

Abstract

The Bible demonstrates a range of attitudes towards disability. Some references are negative (its association with sin and punishment), and some are positive (its association with discipleship and spiritual worth). The allusions to biblical disability in Jane Eyre emphasize the spiritual gains associated with it. Charlotte Brontë centres her discussion of biblical disability on the spiritual role of sight, blindness and madness, and on the physical body’s relationship to the spiritual self. Reading the novel with attention to its use of biblical references to disability provides a more positive understanding of the novel’s account of disability than has hitherto been suggested. This paper argues that if we read Jane Eyre with attention to Charlotte Brontë’s consistently redemptionist agenda in her selection of biblical allusions, Edward Rochester’s disability is not a punishment, but is an indication of his spiritual well-being.