Jane Eyre
Helen Burns
Jane's friend at Lowood
A gentle, patient older pupil who teaches Jane how to endure injustice without hatred.
Helen is Jane's first real friend. When Jane meets her at Lowood, she is reading a book called Rasselas and silently enduring a harsh punishment from a teacher. She is serious, forgiving and deeply religious, with a calm that Jane at first cannot understand.
Helen does not fight back. She tells Jane that life seems too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. She cares more about being good than being right. Jane admires her but cannot copy her. Where Jane burns with a sense of injustice, Helen turns toward patience and faith, and the contrast between them is part of what shapes Jane's own understanding of justice and mercy.
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Helen stays close to Jane after Mr. Brocklehurst publicly brands her a liar, and joins her for tea in Miss Temple's room. When spring brings fever to Lowood, Helen is slowly dying of consumption. Jane tells her the primroses are blooming and Helen says God has made the world beautiful but has a better home waiting.
One night Jane steals into Miss Temple's room to be with her. Helen tells her that she is going to God, whispers "Resurgam," and dies in Jane's arms. Her gentle faith stays with Jane for the rest of her life.
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