Part Three (30 minutes; 8 points)
We have spoken several times about Brontë's belief that religion must engage with the world. Explain this idea by referring to Jane Eyre. Then explain which of the following authors best illustrates Brontë's principle in action. Be sure to explain why the other choices are not as good a fit. How does any of this reflect the Victorian period? An ideal response will be two pages in a large bluebook or four in a smaller one.
I established a criterion for you (religion must engage with the world), but it is important to note that there are two parts to it: religion is one; engagement with the world is the other. It is possible to be religious but unengaged, engaged but not religious, neither, or both. Here is one way to respond to the question.
Jane embraces Christian faith but emphasizes the need to be engaged in the world. Consider Miss Temple as Jane's main model--a Christian woman who gets married (engages with the world). Helen Burns is certainly religious, but she does not engage with the world (she is too good for it and soon leaves it). Brocklehurst has a fake religiosity and a hypocritical engagement with the world (he expects the girls at Lowood to adhere to standards that he does not impose on his own daughters). Rochester has no faith but is engaged with the world in a negative way (he was, at least at one time, a sexual libertine). Janes'f faith and morality serve her well when he tempts her to live with her in sin--this is proper engagement. St. John Rivers is definitely religious, but his faith is wooden (like Brocklehurst's), and his engagement involves extreme zeal for missionary work. A final example you could have mentioned is Jane's cousin Eliza, who will quit the world and become a nun (she has faith, but she denies the world). Jane's example suggests that importance of both faith AND engagement with the world.
Based on this criterion of faith plus engagement in the present world, Hopkins is the best answer. Hopkins, a Jesuit priest (faith), uses poetry (as in “God’s Grandeur” above) to comment on Victorian industrialization and people’s lack of proper behavior (engagement with the world).
The young John Stewart Mill (not Mills, as some of your wrote) meets neither part of Jane’s criterion in the excerpt from his autobiography. It is silent on Christianity (Mill is a philosopher); and, as a bookworm, he is not engaged in the life outside his study: no faith, no social engagement. However, "On Liberty" upgrades this position somewhat: Mill is evidently still without faith, but he is now engaged in the world and cares about others' liberty.
Ulysses, on the other hand, is certainly a man of the world—the most famous explorer-ruler of the classical world. But he lacks Christian faith, which is why Dante’s version of Ulysses’s last voyage has the hero going down at sea within sight of Mt. Purgatory: he is not in a state of grace. Tennyson’s Ulysses remark that “the gulfs may wash us down” is an eerie echo of Dante’s version of the story.
Fra Lippo Lippi, a religious figure to be sure, is a sexual libertine. He engages with the world by frequenting a brothel. His desire to portray both body and soul in his art points in the right direction (faith), but he violates Christian morality in his personal behavior. Lippi is really the opposite of the ethereal Helen Burns: he is as basely mired in the world as she is otherworldly.
So the only figure who matches both parts of the criterion (i.e., both faith and engagement with the world) is Hopkins: he is a Christian who engages with the world around him. One might conclude, however, with a slight qualification: his idea of engagement and Jane’s are different. Whereas she gets married and has children, Hopkins is celibate. His engagement with the world involves speaking to society; hers involves being a quiet part of it.