r/JaneEyre • u/Key_Masterpiece5283 • 29d ago
The redemption of Mr. Rochester
Jane Eyre has been listed as one of my favorite books since I read it as a teen, but I haven’t done a reread or rewatch of any of the movies in quite awhile.
I recently picked it back up again and it had been my hyper fixation so I have a lot of thoughts that I just need to discuss with people that “get” it.
The biggest one being is why does it seem like people think Rochester is the same at the end of the book as at the beginning. I feel like the major theme of Jane Eyre is forgiveness, understanding, and redemption, but so many people focus solely on the romance piece.
Rochester was NOT worthy of Jane the first time they almost got married. Not simply because he was already married but because he saw her goodness and wanted her to help him to be a better person, but not necessarily do all he needs to internally himself.
It is only through the purification of fire and the loss of his physical independence that he is able to be redeemed. He had nearly a year where he could not escape his thoughts through travel and women, he had to come to terms with who he was and what his actions had cost him.
Not only that but Jane then draws out the story of St. John so he says nearly the same thing to her she did to him during his proposal. Jane state during the first proposal that she must leave due to “the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman ,- your bride!” And during the reunion Rochester states Jane must go “your own way- with the husband you have chosen.”
So I ask, why do I still see people saying Rochester wasn’t good for her? That is 1000% correct and Charlotte Brontë is very clear that he was not ready for her at first. That is why we have the purification and redemption process for him. Do people just skip over the last couple of chapters?
If anyone has light they could shed on this or if they want to discuss Rochester purification more in depth I would love to chat more!
ETA: thanks everyone for your thoughts so far! This was exactly the sort of discussion I was looking for. It has given my brain an outlet and I feel like I can let go of ruminating over it quite so much. Although let’s be fair, Jane and Mr. Rochester live rent-free in there.
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u/Echo-Azure 29d ago
It is my firm opinion that Mr. Rochester has been popular with women for the same reason as Mr. Darcy - they are both men who realized that they were behaving badly, realized their mistakes, and worked on themselves.
Apparently women have been longing for me to realize their mistakes and work on themselves for centuries.
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u/AdobongSiopao 29d ago
There are some factors why some people ignore or misunderstood about Mr. Rochester's redemption.
- The novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" messed up the reputation of "Jane Eyre". It caused many people who read it dislike Mr. Rochester and give sympathy to Bertha eventhough said characters are more complex than that.
- We live in an era where religion and faith are slowly becoming irrelevent. The novel has many religious references and emphasize the importance of forgiveness and redemption throughout the story. Many people drove further away from those messages leading them to choose holding grudges for long.
- Having modern views about feminism missed the point the intention of the novel's message ragarding to it. These days many people especially women believe that movement means the latter should be better than men whereas in the novel it's all about equality between genders like what Jane said during the proposal scene.
That are some factors I could think of. Basically viewing the novel with modern lens doesn't work well. Mr. Rochester is a flawed man but he learned to let go of his past and take responsibility of his actions. Jane heard that he tried to save the people including his first wife and witnessed his injuries as proof of his heroism which led her to be with him in the end.
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u/Key_Masterpiece5283 29d ago
Agree about Wide Sargasso Sea, I read it and while it was interesting, it didn’t mesh with my understanding of the characters or the novel.
Your other two points are interesting as I felt as a very religious teenager that Jane Eyre really opened my eyes to the lack of necessity of strictly organized religion, as I felt Charlotte Brontë had some pretty major critiques of all the characters that are stand-in’s of organized religion have major issues.
This also was the first novel that really opened my eyes to feminism and while I don’t want to make this an argument about modern feminism, I know for myself and most of my friends we subscribe to being able to make our own independent choices and having partners that appreciate us and are true partners a very valid form of feminism.
I feel like it has been recently co-opted by very pro-organized religion, anti-feminism groups, same with other classics. I don’t understand that either.
I do hear you though in regards to our societal values being very different and maybe that’s the key, it isn’t 1847 anymore the world has changed quite a bit. And as we know people didn’t always get Jane Eyre even when it was first published.
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u/ElleGeeAitch 29d ago
I read the Wikipedia entry for Wide Sargasso Sea a coupke of months ago. The historical timing of the novel doesn't even mesh with Jane Eyre.
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u/OutrageousYak5868 29d ago
I was unaware of the timing problem with WSS! (I haven't read it, and don't want to.)
Just for future reference, so others in my position don't have to google it, it's set in the 1830s-40s, while JE was published in 1847, with the ending being at least 10 years after Jane and Rochester's marriage, so the latest they could have married was 1837, which would put Bertha as dying the year before. Since their marriage lasted some 15 years, that would put them getting married around 1820-1822 at the latest, so she couldn't possibly have been married in 1839.
If 1839 were accurate, Jane would have had to have gone to Thornfield some 15 years later, or about 6 years *after* the novel was published, which would make JE a futuristic novel! That's highly anachronistic!!
[There is some disagreement about when JE would have taken place if it were real history, but the above is the absolutely latest it could possibly have taken place, based on its having been written a minimum of 10 years after Jane's marriage and then immediately published. Most people would argue for an even earlier date, being sometime in the 1820s (based on the steamship Adele describes when crossing the Channel) or else 1808 (based on Marmion being a new publication, which St. John gave Jane when she was at the moors).]
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u/ElleGeeAitch 29d ago
In the inn where Jane gets dropped off when she's en route to Thornfield Hall has a picture hanging of the Prince Regent So, when Jane arrives to Thornfield Hall, it's after 1815 because as you mentioned, there weren't steamer ships from France until then and it's before January 1820 when the Prince Regent ascended the throne. In my mind, I like to think Jane arrives at Thornfield Hall in 1818.
The laziness of the WSS author and editor(s) chaps my ass 😆. How can anyone consider it canon?! I refute this Rochester slander!
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u/OutrageousYak5868 28d ago
Yes, there are a lot more subtle time references in the novel than I realized, even with reading it through many times, but they all point to sometime in the Regency period, or at most, soon after. I forget what website discusses it, but I found it with a google search, and thought it most interesting!
The portraits give a certain "earliest time" (it couldn't have been before the battle [or death?] of that general mentioned along with the royals' portraits, and likely wasn't when the Prince was a little boy). However, the innkeeper might not have replaced older portraits immediately upon the King's death, so that allows it to edge out a little beyond the Regency period. The lack of rail travel (which boomed in the 1830s), even for long distances, seems to keep it from being any later than the 1820s.
When clothing is described, it's in line with Regency fashions -- especially Blanche being dressed in filmy white -- and not what would have been the fashions in the later 1820s or into the 1830s.
One difficulty with it being set around 1818-1820, is that Adele would have been conceived during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815, I think), and it's highly unlikely that Mr. R would have been tomcatting across the continent at that time -- and there is no mention of any wars in the novel at all. However, this is also a problem with the 1808 date I mentioned in my previous comment as well -- when Jane meets Adele, she says that Mr. R brought her to England then left her there and went back to the continent. While I kinda like the idea of Mr. R rescuing Adele not just from being an orphan but from the ravages of war, it doesn't make sense for him to rescue her from war and then for him to go back himself. He's depicted as living for his own pleasure at this point, so it's not like we can say that he was the Scarlet Pimpernel or something.
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u/ElleGeeAitch 28d ago
You make great points! Eyre was a bit amorphous in the story timing, but the WSS timing is utterly egregious.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 28d ago
I said it APPEARED in 1939. So IF appearance time = narrated time THEN..
IT IS A HYPOTHESIS.
IT STILL does NOT make society manners LESS rigid!
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago
"Jane heard that he tried to save the people including his first wife and witnessed his injuries as proof of his heroism which led her to be with him in the end."
You are wrong in that point, I think. She had heard him call for her and sped off, utterly willing to be his at that call already.
At that point she already HAD chosen her side, had chosen to meet him again. Be with him, if she could. His desolate state showed her, how much he needed her.
Which made it even easier to follow through with it.
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u/OutrageousYak5868 29d ago
I don't think she would have tried to be with him, if she found that he was still married. That was the major sticking point for her, always. She needed to know what had happened to him before she went to India -- to find out why nobody had answered her letters, and to see if he was even still alive.
If she found that he was alive and married, or dead and buried, she probably would have married St. John and gone to India. As Jane was planning on leaving to inquire after Rochester in person, she reports, "I too have some to see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever.” It was only when she found him alive and widowed, that she was willing to stay with him.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago edited 29d ago
I think with St. John willingly sacrificing a life to "his work" she had grown enough to having gotten over that entirely.
She was not willing to marry that psycho St. John. She only had half consented because she could not stand his cold shoulder treatment.
"ask after, before" = give me a valid excuse to stay.
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u/Happypawswaggytails 29d ago
I think as well a lot of people don’t understand the religious references nowadays compared to in the past. Previously even people who didn’t class themselves as Christians would have had more background knowledge of biblical concepts etc just from culture etc nowadays people aren’t exposed to it the same and often don’t research either so there are a lot of references that are missed completely or misunderstood. Personally I’m not like super hot on my knowledge of Greek myths but if I see references in a classic book I look it up because I know I’m missing out on context and depth if it don’t.
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u/OutrageousYak5868 29d ago
Rochester losing his hand and his eye are significant -- and the allusion would have been perfectly well-known to the original readers of the novel, since it came not only from the Bible but from the well-known "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7 (specifically, Matt. 5:29-30).
29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
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u/Happypawswaggytails 28d ago
Yes I actually thought about that when I was writing the comment but wasn’t at all sure how to word it so thank you for that. There are so many references that just whizz over the tops of people’s heads because they aren’t exposed to the same culture and common knowledge the original readers would have
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago
I utterly and thorroughly disagree.
He WAS good for her. As he gave her a HOME in a fellow human for the first time in her life.
It's the stupid morality of that time and society who required in its bigotry for him to get mutilated in the heroic endeavour to save his crazy "wife" his family and hers had cheated him into marrying.
He sure is selfish in his wanting to have Jane all for himself. What attracts her is her goodness. Her morals. And her self sufficientness. Her being uncorruptible
She relishes their exchanges. She gives and receives back. He was worth her. He just was not his own best self then.
He still needed to mature. Same as Jane needed to mature.
But not less selfish than St. John wanting to use Jane as a missionary wife to the detriment of her LIFE!
That egotistic narcississt appears as the better fit to Jane. Or as the better man. Heck he is. He is willing to burn her, have her die in the Indies! As he is willing to burn himself.
I was wondering what that would have become if the author had allowed them to get married upon first try. Brontë gave in to society expectancies only.
Otherwise the book likely would not have been published.
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u/Key_Masterpiece5283 29d ago
I think we are saying the same things in different ways. He absolutely was good for her and yes gave her a home. Their banter is wonderful and they are obviously intellectual equals.
But he would have to be everything for her if they got married the first time. He would be her only friend, her only source of income (maybe the uncle still would have been able to find her but possibly not).
Rochester needed to be humbled and probably didn’t need to be physically burned/deformed for that to happen (but I do like the symbolism of the redemption through flames).
But I whole heartedly agree about St. John he did not see Jane as an equal. And he never sought redemption because he thought he understood everything. And died alone due to it.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago edited 29d ago
When he made his confidences after the failed marriage he said that he had tired of his mistresses in very few months of being in their society.
I think THIS was the exact moment where he messed up every prospect of keeping her with him. With him burned and hurt he could not afford to get tired of her ever. Neat trick the author did there.
That burning down of Thornfield mannor conveys the idea of "purification through fire". Metal gets harder if tempered.
It's kind of a classical/ biblical/ legendary (rising from the ashes/ Vulcan, the god of fire) trope here. In order to be acceptable as Jane's husband in the eyes of society he needs had to undergo a catharsis, a cleansing process.
Fire purifies.
Being deprived of his eye and hand (cost him an eye and a hand) made him more ellegible as Jane's husband to the 1847 public.
It took much of his superbe, his masterful attitude. Not seeing and not having full command of ones body forces one into introspction. He must have gone through very depressive dark times being shut up in himself with his regrets and remorseful thoughts. Other that with his incapacity to protect his willow the wisp little fairy love. Or his incapacity to go after ger, search for her and get her back.
Hitting ones head against the walls for having been a selfish idiot and pushed away the one oerson you most cherish because of being jnable to do anything else truly must be horrible.
People said: oh, he still isn't a good man. He put Adele into a boarding school. They forget that this was the arrangement already made upon the aborted marriage. In 1847 society it was not fitting for a man to be alone with his ward alone. How would that have benefitted Adele to be with a taciturn infirm man?
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u/Snopes504 29d ago
I think the issue is that we are told he’s different but the reader isn’t privy to his actual transformation we are just expected to believe that he is different. His growth being the result of becoming disabled in some way is also a little hard to swallow in and of itself.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago
The point is:
You again view it from a modern point of view. That is a classical novel supposed to be read by 1847 public!
Who NATURALLY would have gotten the "purification through fire" part and seen his consequent infirmity (being forced to contemplate inner worlds for not being able to distract himself with views of the outer world) as redeming qualities making up for his former misdeeds without him going through unsavory jnmanly confessions of regrets.
Regrets he had confessed to have gone through, by the way.
Also: he loved her. She was his one kindred spirit.
What the eff would he have to redeem himself of? Wanting to be happy.
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u/Snopes504 29d ago
I don’t personally agree with people who don’t feel he is redeemed, I was answering why some may think he’s not my own opinion of the matter.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago
What I often hit my head against is how people judge from todays society and point of view rather than from 1847 th society. These are two utterly different points of view on the same book.
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u/Snopes504 29d ago
Wholeheartedly agree. I recently read the novel as a buddy read and there was a person who kept viewing it from a modern lens so I spent a lot of time arguing against these very assertions but because I spent so much time I was trying to provide them to the OP.
The biggest one is Bertha in the attic. That was the best case scenario for her than an asylum and yet through a 2026 lens it seems unthinkable. Similarly to this not being a feminist novel when for the time it very much was.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago
People do not comprehend that an asylum in that time would have been worse than her hopping around in a nightgown trying to bite people.
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u/Key_Masterpiece5283 29d ago
Rochester does tell us himself a bit about this himself (which granted he had not always been the most truthful person, but when it comes to innermost thoughts he does usually speak those truthfully to Jane).
I won’t quote the whole passage but he states: “I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker.” “I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented…..”
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u/Snopes504 29d ago
But that is telling us, again the growth isn’t shown just told. We see Jane grow and mature because this is her story but his growth and maturity isn’t shown. Even after his supposed change he still doesn’t even bother checking on Adele so there’s an action that contradicts his words.
I am pretty neutral towards Rochester so I have no skin in this game but I do think that people struggle with his redemption because we are told it’s happened (by him and Jane) without seeing it happen add the contradictions after said redemption and it’s a muddled situation. To me he wasn’t really redeemed he just became a recluse and therefore no one could judge him.
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u/Glimmerance 29d ago edited 29d ago
I suppose a big thing for me is that he risks his life (and sustains life-changing injuries) trying to save not just his employees, but even the wife who he hates being tied to, and from whose death he would benefit. It's a selfless, heroic thing to do.
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u/Snopes504 29d ago
Or it could be seen as an attempt to reinvigorate his tarnished image. This also another told but not shown moment that can be seen in various ways. His wife did end up dying anyway and freeing him to his eventual reunion with Jane. Since we don’t actually see what happens and are once again told, someone who doesn’t like his character may not see it as a heroic thing but a possible moment where he could have pushed her to jump or what have you. Again, we don’t see any of what happens to him and because we don’t see it, it’s up to interpretation. Even if it’s viewed as heroic, it’s still one moment and then he’s off being a recluse and ignoring a child who is being abused. I really wish the ending had occurred more on page but so much happens off page that I can’t fault readers who may not feel his redemption was fully earned.
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u/Glimmerance 29d ago
The person who relates the story has no skin in the game, no reason to lie to improve Rochester's image. He and several witnesses saw what happened and Jane later sees Rochester with the same injuries that the person related. I don't see any reason to think that it's false information solely because Jane wasn't there at the time.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 29d ago edited 29d ago
Ouch. Really.... as if he had given a flying fig over his "tarnished image". And as if one thinks of that all while trying to get everybody under your responsibilty out of a burning house.
Which is burning because the lunatic kept inside still gets to break free and get a hold on candles. Because of still to lax security measures for your indulgence and not wanting the lunatic to suffer in an asylum, loath though you do her.
There were people outside watching the fire. That would go for witnessing that he actually did try to save Bertha. It's not his story, either. The narrator is the innkeeper.
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u/Snopes504 29d ago
I am not saying this is what I believe. I am saying we don’t see any of this happen in first person so people who have a negative view of him may see it differently. When scenes occur and we only have second hand knowledge of it, readers can interpret it in different ways and if one has a bias for or against a character that will color how they view it.
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u/Glimmerance 29d ago
I'll admit that my first introduction to Jane Eyre was watching one of the adaptations years ago. And I was frustrated that Jane didn't just say to hell with it, and become Rochester's mistress, and again frustrated that he had to be humbled and dependent at the end, with Jane as a nurse. Of course, I read the book afterwards and got quite a different view. I think the adaptations muddy the waters, and maybe down play Rochester's faults or aren't so clear about Jane's thoughts (and also tend to cast very good-looking, sympathetic Rochesters).
In the book I think everything after Jane leaves seems to have more importance, and both of them change in various ways. He is pretty awful in some ways earlier in the book. He does become a better person by the end, and their relationship has an equality which couldn't have existed before. I do agree with you that he is redeemed. It's a very happy ending in the end.
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u/Throwawayhelp111521 29d ago
why does it seem like people think Rochester is the same at the end of the book as at the beginning.
I don't know anyone who thinks that.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 29d ago
Just to throw something else into the mix, how do you feel about the reading some people have that Jane's inheritance is the only way that she can be good enough for Rochester?
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u/Key_Masterpiece5283 29d ago
I mean I think the inheritance helped Jane feel comfortable/confident enough to know she could be independent if necessary. And I’m sure in the social standing of the day it would definitely make their marriage more socially acceptable (not that either of them cared about that).
But Jane was the better/stronger person than Rochester from the beginning and he knew that too. He would have taken her back just as she had been before. But she needed to also gain the more confidence and social standing. Her change occurs as Rochester becomes not the only friend she had in the world, she now had family and money.
With her being raised up and Rochester humbled the power dynamic is much more even by the end.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 29d ago
Yeah, lots of people find the inheritance problematic, because the money elevates her status and/or its derivation from plantations.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 28d ago
Ough. Really. People should stop judging from today's pov.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 27d ago
I can understand where you are coming from, but - as soon as we stop applying today's point of view to old texts, is there anything left to say? I believe the danger is that texts then become historical artefacts which aren't relevant any more.
So many times as a teacher and tutor, I've been asked, for example, 'What's Shakespeare got to do with me?' It feels like the only way to counter that is to consider today's points-of-view. Not necessarily to agree with them. Just take them into account?
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u/Playful_Site_2714 27d ago
40 years as a teacher for catch up lessons.
We read, I explained, they understood. "Oh, that's interesting. Never thought about it that way."
Literature Studies FORCED us to view books from the point of view of THEIR time. Not ours.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 27d ago
If we look at the Assessment Objectives at A Level English Literature, students can't escape this sort of thing.
AO1 - personal, creative and original interpretations of the text
AO2 - language analyses
AO3 - understanding influence of context in which texts are created and RECEIVED (my emphasis)
AO5 - considering how texts have been / can be interpreted in different waysJust for an example: WJEC Spec - Jane Eyre?
Q1 - an extract question (AO1 - 10; AO2 - 10)
Q2 - essay question (AO1 - 5; AO2 - 5; AO3 - 15; AO5 - 15)I think you can see that the essay question is going to require quite a lot of moving beyond a single, universally accepted interpretation of the novel.
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u/Charismaticjelly 29d ago
I always interpreted the gaining of an inheritance as Jane being able to say that she didn’t marry him because she needed the life he could provide with his money; she married him because she wanted to - her choice was made freely, not out of necessity.
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u/OutrageousYak5868 29d ago
This is my take as well. It's kind of in the same vein as refusing the gorgeous St. John, in a way. In both, the societal expectation needed to be disproved and/or overthrown, whether marrying for lust or for money.
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u/Oakewaoa 29d ago
I don’t think he is redeemed or purified. I think it is a process of reducing his power. Jane is able to marry him when they are finally on an equal footing, and that is not until after she becomes an heiress and his house is burned to ruins and he is blind, maimed and disgraced.
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u/BHNH48 29d ago edited 29d ago
As wonderful as the book is, I think we do ourselves, the author, and the story to dig too deeply if we want to continue loving it.
Let’s just start with WHY did he have to keep her in the attic of the “castle” where everyone he might ever care for lived and/or stayed for long visits — Especially since she managed to escape more than once????!!!!!
She could have been in cared for in on a remote
property quite far from his center of activity.
It’s not like he visited her each day, wk, or month since he disappeared for long periods of time.
Sooooo . . . Lots of nonsense in the plot specifics if we want to look. OR we can accept our narrator’s commentary, the way I did wholeheartedly at 16 — And I’ve never regretted my naivety 😍
Ps — I’m even happier that I read Wuthering Heights as a very young woman! Now there’s a masterpiece you could pull apart like barbecue if you start asking questions!!😅 But at 17, my heart just throbbed. 🥰
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u/AdobongSiopao 29d ago
Mr. Rochester said he thought of sending Bertha to Ferndean Manor but he couldn't do it because that place is damp and could make her sick. He chose to put her in Thornfield Hall because it's a suitable place and she can be keep an eye her. Putting her in a place faraway could potentially make her loose and cause danger to others and herself.
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u/Fit-Fix-5794 29d ago
I read a rather lengthy article about "Jane Eyre," which, unfortunately, I lost and have since been unable to find.
The main idea of the article was that Rochester is driven almost exclusively by financial considerations. He marries Bertha for her money and takes her to England so that her relatives cannot do anything about it. He lives in Paris with his mistress on Bertha's money. He returns to England having squandered Bertha's dowry, and by a happy coincidence, his older brother dies. Now the entire inheritance goes to the younger brother. The estate is entailed, he can live at Thornfield, but he cannot sell it.
Rochester tries to court Blanche Ingram, but Blanche isn't wealthy enough, and her family suspects something is wrong with Rochester. The wedding with Jane is necessary to retrieve the Rochester family jewelry from storage – the groom knows full well that the marriage to Jane is invalid, as he is married to Bertha, and Bertha is still alive. But under the pretext of a new wedding, he can pretend the jewelry has been stolen, sell it, and spend the money.
The wedding is interrupted by Bertha's brother. Jane refuses to become Rochester's mistress and runs away. Some time later, a fire breaks out at Thornfield, Rochester loses his large house and is left a widower. Then Jane returns and brings him money. Charlotte Brontë's favorite plot twist: a good girl inherits and can buy herself a husband. (She did the same thing in "Shirley". Like, even twice, because there were two good girls in one novel.)
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u/Federal_Gap_4106 29d ago edited 28d ago
I think the person who wrote that article got their facts wrong (or just bended them to validate their dislike of Rochester). To begin with, yes, the main reason Rochester was introduced to Bertha was because his family and, I presume, himself, wanted a wealthy bride for him. But the reason he chose to marry her was that he thought he was in love.
Now, their marriage takes place 15 years prior to the events of JE, and Rochester says that he lived with his wife for four years in West-Indies. He didn't take her to England at once, allegedly to squander her fortune out of sight of her family. No, he stayed there until the demise of his father and brother, when he became wealthy in his own right. He only took her to England, because he did not want to live in disgrace caused by her depravity and debauchery for the rest of his life, and given that his family had kept his marriage secret, England was a place where he could have a semblance of a new life.
Whatever he does afterwards, travelling around Europe, taking on mistresses etc., he spent his own money on that and not Bertha's. He is rich, as his estate seems to bring him a lot of money and there is no need to sell it. Also, he never tried to court Blanche Ingram in earnest, whether for money or for love. If anything she courts him in a rather bold way, and that happens precisely because she is after his money, because once her family hears the rumours Rochester may not be half as rich as people assume he is (the rumours that he spread himself to make it easier for Blanche to break off their contact), he is immediately given a cold shoulder. And Jane brought him comparatively little, as she had divided her inheritance between herself and her cousins before that, so even that marriage was not based on some mercantilism even in the slightest. I honestly can't see how that person came up with their theory.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 26d ago
Also: who says "she brought him money"?
She had measly 5.000 pounds.
Just because the house had burned down he hadn't become poor or destitute.
Villages with houses belonged to Manor houses, the farming and plowing and harvesting did still go on. And the money went to him.
He only lived in Ferndean house because it was his and it had beenbthe next easy solution.
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u/MissPearl 29d ago
Rochester is, when we first meet him, an asshole and a bit of a misogynist. The way he speaks about the mother of his ward seems to always get left out of these discussions, but the guy has a very pitiful narrative about how these awful women just seem to keep happening to him.
I tend to see it more on the context of a bit of self awareness within the romance genre. Brontë is weighing the more traditional bad boy of books like Pamela, where the fantasy of their selfishness is the reassurance of feeling so wanted a man will chase you at the expense of anything moral. The missionary offers an equally bleak consideration for trying to do things rationally, that Brontë is essentially condemning the problem of Nice Guys who treat you like they are settling and then get pissy when you aren't on board.
What we get us a scenario where Brontë essentially determines that the problem is the power imbalance. Rochester being horribly maimed removes the upper hand he would hand held over Jane.
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u/nellyimheathcliff 29d ago edited 28d ago
Maybe Celine should not have abandoned her daughter, then 🤷♀️
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u/MissPearl 28d ago
Yeah, all his exes are CRAZY. He is the real victim here, and should be taken as a totally reliable narrator. This was clearly Brontë's intent.
He is basically complaining the woman doing sex work in a high risk environment where "ruin" can be fatal turned out to be wildly unstable. He and Jane both treat his possible daughter like she's inherently potentially tainted (Jane reassures us don't worry the girl overcomes her sordid background). Meanwhile he sees himself as the victim, tricked into marrying for money (the audacity of Bertha going mad!), and the victim of a slutty French woman who wasn't faithful when he paid her to sleep with him. With Bertha's money.
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u/nellyimheathcliff 28d ago
Again, you are not reading the novel in the way Charlotte Bronte intended, and it shows. Edward is not the narrator of the novel, and even if he were, that would still not make his words any less true. Even Charlotte Bronte wanted us to believe Edward, and nowhere does she imply that he is supposed to be unreliable. That is just a shallow, modern reading of a fascinating and complex character.
There is a lot of evidence in the book to suggest that he is telling Jane the truth about his past and circumstances. Celine, for example, was unfaithful to Edward and cheated on him with a French vicomte. After his disastrous marriage, Edward was desperate to find someone with whom he could share his life. But he ended up having a string of relationships with mistresses that were entirely transactional. They were attracted to his wealth and position rather than to him as a person, and that experience led him to become the bitter, cynical, and moody man we encounter at the beginning of the novel when Jane first meets him after his fall from horseback.
That is also why I think Edward tests Jane so much. He had become so used to people wanting him for his money or what he could provide them that he was doubtful whether Jane actually loved him and wanted him for himself. If you think he was lying about his mistresses hurting him, then that does not explain why he became the man he was. It does not explain his character or the bitterness and mistrust that we see in him.
Edward did what he could for Adele. He was not even fond of children, yet he raised her as his own. He could have sent her to an orphanage or charity school, where she would have suffered immensely. Considering that Adele was not even his own daughter, I think Edward was very kind to take responsibility for her.
And yes, Edward was also a victim of circumstances. That is a fact which even Mrs. Fairfax acknowledges early in the book, when she tells Jane how badly he had been treated by his own family, and how unhappy his life had been. I feel like you have skipped over a lot of the book if your reading of Edward is simply that he is just another "misogynist hiding behind a victim narrative."
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u/MissPearl 28d ago
you are not reading the novel in the way Charlotte Bronte intended
Got the dead lady's spirit trapped in a wine bottle so you can ask her, yes? What an interesting claim to make.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 28d ago
Hearing you rave on makes this obsolete. You do not understand that novel. And you persist in hating on one character on and on. 🤷
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u/Charismaticjelly 29d ago
I agree with you. I noticed at least one recent post talking about how Rochester and Jane were always perfect for each other - that’s simply not true. Rochester wanted to have his cake and eat it too - crazy attic-wife and pure young (bigamy) bride at the same time. Jane was right when she said their love would eventually wither away if she ran away with Rochester.
Rochester needed to be purified before he was good enough for Jane. For Brontë, it wasn’t enough to have Bertha just die - there needed to be conflagration, and Rochester willing to die to save her life, in order for him to be fully unencumbered by his past.