09:17 pm
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Conscience Turned Tyrant
Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty feet in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
--Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The reason Jane Eyre is my favorite novel (all right, other than my steamy crush on Rochester) is that I identify so much with Jane. Since I settled into my routine of an annual reading, I've never read through it without finding some new resonance between Jane and me. Jane resonates even with my seeming contradictions. Like me, she is both shy and talkative, both timid around others and confident in who she is.
The quote above struck me from my very first reading. I couldn't believe it. How did Charlotte Bronte know? How could anyone else understand what I'd always thought was unique to me, that my own conscience could infuse me not merely with guilt (for guilt would come after having committed an offense, after the failure of conscience) but with utter terror for the strength of that very conscience? The nearest any other literary work I know has come to expressing such a sentiment is Nicholas Nickleby's line (and I got it from a film, not the book, though I suspect it's a direct quote) "Weakness is tiring, but strength is exhausting."
What is exhausting about strength? Strength is exhausting because the strong must keep going when the weak can go on no longer. They must bear not only their own weight but also that of others who lean on their strength. When the strong one reaches the end of his strength, he doesn't fail only himself; he fails all of those who depend on him.
What is terrifying about Conscience? It is the threat he (Yes, both Jane's conscience and mine are male, and we could write a whole gender-issues essay about that, couldn't we?) poses to what Jane calls "passion" and what I call "desire." Conscience, because he derives his authority from the immutable ideal of right (though it be the individual's ideal, not any universal ideal), is merciless with lesser-order concerns. "You want it?" he asks. "No matter. It is wrong. You may not, you cannot, you will not have it."
I do not know how others ignore their consciences and go about following the desires they, in their hearts, consider wrong. When Conscience turns his steely gaze on me, I tremble, not because I fear the consequences of defying him -- I cannot defy him, so the point is moot -- but because I know I will obey and, so doing, kill Desire. I tremble for the pain I know I will cause myself. I know I will do it because I know I am strong enough to do it, and I curse the strength that allows and, therefore, demands that I do it.
Of course, the desires for which I tremble are not the petty ones, the ones I would despise even without a merciless conscience. I tremble when Conscience raises his "arm of iron" against a desire of my heart. These desires are not evil or immoral in and of themselves, but they may be selfish. (By "selfish" I don't mean to the detriment of others; I mean simply for myself and no one else.) Conscience tolerates such desires until it happens that I could help another by abandoning one of them. Then he strikes. "You want this?" he asks. "No matter. It serves none but you. You will abandon it to serve another."
I fear that my conscience will chip at me piece by piece, in the name of selflessness, until I am truly without self, until I have no more desires of my own. Must I abandon my most deeply cherished dreams because others are in need? Conscience says, "If by doing so you may aid them, yes, you will." And how can I argue? There are countless souls across this world who suffer in ways I never have. What are my desires to be a scholar next to their suffering? Selfish. Selfish.
But what am I without a dream?
Current Mood: frightened
Tags: conscience, family, jane eyre
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