Love makes people do crazy things sometimes, and in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, Jane herself shows an excellent example of this. Her sense of independence greatly affects the love and relationships she shares with Mr. Edward Rochester and St. John Rivers. Growing up in the Reed household amongst cousins who treat her like dirt, Jane develops an excellent sense of independence. It deepens when she is shipped off to attend the Lowood charity boarding school. This renowned independence prompts her to leave Lowood and seek the job of a governess somewhere else. There she meets Edward Rochester, and almost immediately falls in love. After finding out a deep dark secret about Mr. Rochester, Jane is forced to once again leave the place she called home and move on in life. She then meets St. John Rivers, a missionary for God who says he loves Jane, but honestly only wants her to be a missionary on his voyage to tell the world about Jesus Christ. The dependence Jane has upon herself helps her gain the courage to leave St. John Rivers and Whitcross and to find her one true love - Mr. Rochester.
Ever since she could remember, Jane has lived with her Aunt Reed, and her cousins Georgiana, Eliza, and John. All of them treated Jane with little respect as a human being, let alone a family relation. From early on in childhood, Jane showed signs of independence. In one scene, John pushes Jane around, and Jane fights him back. Later she realizes that "this reproach of [her] dependence had become a vague sing-song in [her] ear; very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible" (Bronte 6). Finally her Aunt Reed ships off Jane to Lowood boarding school, which is a charity school for educating orphans, whose funding is paid for by subscriptions. While attending, Jane realizes she must depend upon herself because she no longer has any family. When she places an ad in the paper for the job of a governess, she did not know that it would soon change her life.