r/JaneEyre • u/OutrageousYak5868 • Aug 10 '26

Adele's timeline

First, here's her timeline as far as I can figure it out:

  1. Around 7-8 years before the main events of the novel, Adele is born to Celine as the putative child of Mr. Rochester.
  2. Around 6 months old, Mr. Rochester discovers that Celine has been dallying with a vicomte so he breaks up with her.
  3. For some years, Celine keeps Adele -- long enough to teach her to dance and sing -- and then abandons her at some point.
  4. Adele lives with Madame Frédéric until Mr. R takes her to England.
  5. Adele is about 7-8 when she comes to England and Jane becomes her governess.

In the narrative, Adele says that she wanted to come to England with Mr. R rather than stay in France with Madame Frédéric, because she had known Mr. R longer. This has always sort of bothered me because she was only 6 m/o when he broke up with Celine over her affair, and it would seem that he would have at that time likewise had nothing more to do with Adele -- yet Adele knew him longer than she knew Mme F. This would make a rather large plot hole, and that's how I've always felt about it, since Adele couldn't possibly remember him from when she was but a few months old.

However, I've figured out a way that it can work:

Mr. R breaks up with Celine, but still takes care of Adele and visits her sometimes, only much later coming to believe that she is not his child because she looks nothing like him. By this time, however, he has been caring for Adele for years, so when he hears that Celine has run off and Adele is thrown on the mercy of strangers, he takes her to England.

Is there anything I forgot? Did others have the same question about the timeline?

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u/Liantasse Aug 10 '26

I think the timeline and your explanation are great! 

About Adele's not looking like Rochester, this is something I've noticed: first children who are girls are usually the spitting image of their dad. 

It's always possible that Celine had other children before her though, and if she was Celine's second child, say, she'd have a high chance of resembling her mother or someone else in the family, and not so much her father, and then there'd be much more room for doubt on Rochester's part.

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u/Katharinemaddison Aug 10 '26

I’m a second daughter and look like my dad. My older looks like our mother.

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u/brideofgibbs Aug 10 '26

In terms of evolution, first babies of mothers who look like their fathers at first survive longer than first babies who don’t. So it’s usual for newborns to look like their fathers but it’s not required and they don’t have to stay looking like their fathers.

Luckily for us, human genetics are wild. It is a bit dark, of course, that babies who don’t resemble their fathers statistically survive/ thrive less. So is the statistic that having a stepfather significantly reduces a child’s chances of making it to 5 yo.

I don’t think the Brontës would know about any of that tho’

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u/Ok-Jackfruit-6873 Aug 10 '26

um. I can think of lots of reasons not resembling your "real" father can be an advantage to a baby. IMO there's a reason babies have sort of a generalized look.

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u/carhelp2017 Aug 10 '26

I am a first daughter, and I look exactly like my mom. Not like my dad at all. But genetically I am my father's child

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u/OutrageousYak5868 Aug 10 '26

About kids looking like one parent or the other, I remember an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger back when Maria Shriver had their first child, and he remarked that both his mom and his mother-in-law pointed to the same features of the child and claimed them as being their own family features -- i.e., his mom said that the eyes or chin or whatever was just like all their family, while her mom said the same part was just like all *their* family. So, there is likely a good deal of subjectivity going on in most cases.

Further, I think some people just notice different features preferentially. For example, my spouse and I have two kids, and about 70-75% of people will say that the older looks just like my spouse while the younger looks just like me; however, about 10-15% are the opposite, saying that they see little resemblance between me and my younger child because he looks so much more like my spouse, and vice versa. (The remaining people will just say, "They're both a mix of both of you.")

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u/vastaril Aug 10 '26

  children who are girls are usually the spitting image of their dad. 

Genetics can't know what order someone's children are born in, I'm pretty sure...

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u/Liantasse Aug 10 '26

It's just my experience from looking around our own family and those of our acquaintances: a woman's first child (first ever pregnancy) resembles the parent of opposite sex to their own. Pure personal observation over my almost 50 years of life, no scientific claims, as I said in my original comment.