Helen Burns is the first example in which religion is applied correctly in order to achieve a positive effect. He so embodies hypocrisy that even as he starves and cuts that hair off of all his plainly dressed students, his own daughters prance around in silks, furs and curls. Rather than doing the really “Christian” thing and offering forgiveness to Jane, he commands all the girls at Lowood School to shun her. Rather than being kind to Jane as a true Christian would be to a child, Brocklehurst is extremely judgmental and continues the cycle of injustice and dehumanization that has characterized Jane’s childhood. “‘That proves you have a wicked heart,’” he declares, “‘and you must pray to God to change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh’”(40).
Reed (who, by the way, is supposed to be performing the fundamentally Christian act of charity) informs Brocklehurst that Jane is a bad child, he asks her whether she enjoys the Psalms, to which she replies that she finds them uninteresting. Brocklehurst embodies the hypocrisy of misguided religion. Christian ideals are frequently twisted and misapplied by the people around Jane, resulting in hypocrisy and injustice. Throughout Jane’s life, religion has served as both the source of her abuse and her last remaining comfort. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavor you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end.” (469) “I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will give your heart to God: it is all I want.
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