Jane Eyre - I am no bird

Gateshead. The red-room, the pulse of a child. Bread at Lowood, frost in the bowls, discipline in the air. Helen Burns, grave and lucid: “Life appears too short for nursing animosity.” It stayed— a lamp under ash. “Do you think I am an automaton? A machine without feelings?” “No; I have as much soul as you—” Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little... I am soulless? And heartless? You think wrong! I will not be folded to fit your world! “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me!” “I am a free human being with an independent will.” Let the world press its iron law— I will not be folded to fit it. No net, no claim, no false possession: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me!” Thornfield. Candle-gloam, a hidden pulse beneath the stair. A veil rent in the chamber. A truth spoken at the altar... And the life I had made split clean through. Then the moors. Wind, waste, the fierce plain fact of survival. Poor, obscure, plain— yet not owned, not emptied, not bent. “I ask you to pass through life at my side” could not undo the law within. I chose hunger over false peace, conscience over ease, and kept my soul intact. “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me!” “I am a free human being with an independent will.” Reader! I returned! Not captive! Not purchased! I kept my soul— And I married him! Not a prize. Not a bird. A woman, level-eyed, and free.