Character Comparison: Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina

Comparison of the novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Contains spoilers

By Keturah Lamb, July 9, 2022

Jane Eyre is feisty and not very pretty, so we are told. But we fall in love with a little girl who has a sensitive heart willing to forgive those who torment her and to pray for them. The plot quickly turns away from the wit and misfortune of a Jane Austen type story and we see a foreshadowing of all the dark, sordid things ahead when Jane is locked in a room where she believes to see a red demon. 

Anna Karenina makes quite the first impression. She is beautiful, elegant, but above all she sees those around her and all feel known and loved by her. In her first scene we witness Anna missing her son, but she is here to save her brother’s marriage. She exhorts her sister-in-law to forgive. It is a touching dialogue, and despite all that will follow I believe this to be Anna’s greatest work. The brother’s marriage is saved, the wife forgives her husband of adultery, and then Anna proceeds to do that which her brother did. She betrays the confidence of a young girl and allures away that young girl’s suitor. Anna returns home to her husband and son, feeling no remorse when the young man follows her. 

Jane and Anna appear to have had similar upbringings. Both were brought up out of destitution. Both are spirited and have a deeper need than most young women of their day: a need to be intellectually satisfied. They both served as governesses, and despite Jane’s plain disposition, both young women are unforgettable to men, and even to women. 

Jane cares for a small girl, the godchild of the man she loves. Anna has a son with a husband whom she despises. Jane cares for this girl as if she were her own. Anna loves her son. Yet in some ways Jane’s love for the little french girl is more wholesome than Anna’s maternal devotion. Jane befriends this little girl and worries over her future. Anna is incapable of sacrificing lust for her son’s sake. And later we see an even more sinister side of Anna’s motherly side when she bears a daughter to her lover. She can’t stand this daughter born of supposed love, and yearns for the son she voluntarily abandoned. It is subtle, yet perhaps the greatest testimony of their characters how the two women love the children in their lives. Jane gives of herself, and loves because love is pure. Anna doesn’t understand love unless it is to hate. Her husband never fully accepted their son: therefore she loves their son. Anna’s husband would have taken the bastard child as his own: therefore Anna hates her own daughter.

The women are protective and jealous over that which they love. 

Anna hates anything that takes attention away from herself. She despises her husband’s magnanimity. She can’t bear his goodness, his work. She complains of his coldness, yet the few times he tries to open up she cuts him down with her own coldness. She envies the good in him that she refuses to allow to be inside her own soul. When she runs away with her lover she is never satisfied. She is afraid of losing her beauty, she wants him to be always with her where she can make certain he is not falling in love with anyone else. She does not trust either man. She is ruled by her jealousy. 

Jane is tempted by jealousy, too. But her thoughts are not only on herself but of the injustice committed against another. Mr. Rochester uses another young woman to arouse Jane’s jealousy, forcing Jane to be witness to his games. Jane is outraged, because of how he taunts her own heart but also because he is using this other young woman unjustly. Jane protests. She makes ready to leave if she must. She confronts Mr. Rochester and the game is ended… (so she believes). Jane is not ruled by her jealousy and does all in her power to make certain that each person is treated honorably. Anna never thinks of anyone save herself outside her jealousy, and is willing to let others be hurt and violated, including her own son, to satisfy her own lusts. Jane is willing to sacrifice her own desire to be loved for what is righteous. 

 There are crucial points in both books, several for Anna. Jane discovers that Mr. Rochester has a wife in his attic. She does something Anna would be incapable of doing, because Anna never truly knew what it meant to love: Jane removes herself from her situation. 

Here the plots are very similar. 

Jane is awakened and nearly killed by the until now unknown wife. Everything was going so smoothly and now… now Jane must do what is right. Mr. Rochester has betrayed her trust countless times. Still Jane loves and forgives this man who so far has played with her and tricked her with repulsive measures, yet because of her love she leaves.

Anna is on her deathbed after delivering a daughter born out of adultery. Up to this point she has given into lust. But she repents and is granted forgiveness from her husband. She is content, until she regains her health and begins to hate her husband again. He offers her everything she wants, including divorce. Yet because of her lust she leaves. 

It is such an interesting juxtaposition. They both do exactly the same thing. They leave a situation and the men to whom they were attached. And as a result the rest of their lives are changed. It has me asking the question: when and how do we know when it is we must stay or leave? I’ve spent much time comparing these two bits, but it’s overly simple. In all things we must be led by love. And we can’t know this by what is hardest or gives us the most peace. Leaving was hard for Anna: she left behind her son. But it also gave her peace: she was at last away from her magnanimous husband. Meanwhile Jane nearly died when she left. She had no relations, no friends to turn toward. She had a measure of peace, but also felt much anxiety over how Mr. Rochester fared. Jane knew she had done right, but didn’t always feel at peace. 

For a moment, I’d like to compare a few other characters, because I feel they added to who Anna and Jane were shown to be. In many ways John and Levin were the same person. John, the pastor who proposed to Jane, and Levin the man who married Kitty and made Anna Karenina worth reading. Both of these men felt great callings and believed the love of a woman unnecessary, but perhaps a help in moving forward with their great works. I feel John wasn’t fully and fairly portrayed, but that Levin’s story made up for John’s lack. I really loved these two men. 

Levin of course earned my love, but it is John who I think of most often because of a part where Jane talks of how she would do anything for John no matter how strenuous because of her great love and respect for him, but she could never be his wife. When I first read it I found it to be such a strange thought. But over the course of this last winter I have learnt what this means as I’ve become acquainted with a particular man who has earned the same sort of sentiments from me. I love to serve this particular person and would do anything I could to help him in his life calling, and yet could never be his wife. I do not think this has anything to do with any specific person, but because of a loyalty we feel toward the people we are with, and because of the desire put into a woman's heart to serve and give. 

When Jane meets John she serves him, acts honorably toward him, and reserves her heart. 

When Anna meets Levin she turns on her charms, once more violating Kitty in her attempts to capture this man’s affections. Jane was content to serve unseen. Anna demanded that all men be enchanted by her.

Together these two women are really inseparable. Unfortunately Jane is not a relatable character most of the time. We all understand Anna, she is real. And this is why Kitty is such a necessary addition to Anna Karenina’s story. It is possible to be as wholesome and sacrificing as Jane and also as real and jealous and passionate as Anna. It is Kitty whom I wish to be most like. And in many ways, Levin is also the better example of man. Mr. Rochester was manipulative and abusive. Anna’s husband was boring and distant. Anna’s lover was stupid and dispicable. John lacked gusto. But it is Levin who haphazardly humbled his high ideals to understand a woman, accept the ways she’d change his life, and learn to see that it was good. 

Even though Anna Karenina’s plot would be considered more degenerate, I found Jane Eyre harder to read. I disliked Mr. Rochester so much, especially the part where he pretended to be a gypsy woman, that I had a hard time accepting Jane’s love for him. At times I wasn’t sure what to think of Jane. In many aspects it would be hard to say she was any better than Anna. Both girls were quite driven by their desires, and even Anna had a few principles of her own. Yet their souls were drastically different. Jane’s was the light of that plot and Anna’s was a black hole that sucked away. A few questions and Anna could have understood and learned to love her husband, and discovered that her husband was quite open to having her in his world. But Anna was incapable of loving, not because she desired to be seen, but rather she refused to see the darkness in her soul, the darkness most evident when she was with her husband and her daughter.

Despite a few similarities, Jane and Anna were never truly alike. It is Jane and Anna’s husband that shared magnanimous souls. It is Anna and Mr. Rochester who threatened to kill themselves over lust, who abused and manipulated and played games to cause jealousy. Anna and Mr. Rochester were both offered forgiveness and sanctified hearts. Mr. Rochester nearly lost his life, sacrificed his sight, but at last regained his soul. Humbled, he found love. Anna’s last act was to demand all attention: she took her life and the bit of light there had been left in her soul was snuffed out.