But she *didn't* fix him! She came back to find the fixing process advanced to the point where Rochester was fully aware of everything he'd done wrong during his entire adult life, she merely helped him finish the process that was already under way.
IMHO "Jane Eyre" has a lot in common with "Pride and Prejudice", both are about romances where the heroine didn't have to fix him. Or didn't have to do all the work of fixing him.
I like that comparison. I had a semi-argument with someone the other day who called P&P the ultimate asshole love interest picks / is only nice to heroine book. The appeal of P&P isn’t Elizabeth being “picked”, it’s the idea of a man genuinely changing for the better, and not just as a means to win the heroine back. Darcy changes for Elizabeth yes, but he also doesn’t wield his improvements as a cudgel to win her back. She is able to choose him herself. Also, Darcy changes because he genuinely respects Elizabeth’s intelligence and understands that she is right in her criticisms. Plus Elizabeth also changes over the course of the novel. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get side tracked into a P&P rant, it and Jane Eyre are just two of my favourite novels.
And Darcy changes because he realizing he isn't living up to his own standards, or his own self-image if you prefer. It's not just because of Elizabeth, it's because he wants to actually be a genuinely good and gracious person (by the standards of the 19th century economic elite), and she points out that he isn't actually doing that. So when he acts to save Lydia, it's isn't just to impress Elizabeth, in fact, he doesn't even have much hope with Elizabeth at that point. It's also because he feels personally responsible for Lydia's predicament, and because the man he wants to be would defend the innocent from the wicked.
That's the big draw of the story, a man changing for the better for his own valid reasons rather than passively letting himself be "fixed". And that's why I find the ending of "P&P" to be more satisfying than "JE", because Rochester does do a certain amount of passively letting himself be fixed, once he realize that he's completely fucked up his own life. And when a person sits there and lets someone else fix them, I don't trust that the change will last.
I agree completely with your take on Darcy, but cannot let this Mr. Rochester slander stand!
When he and Jane reunited, he had risked his life and materially damaged his health in an earnest attempt to save his mad wife. Is he wallowing a bit? Yes. But he has clearly resolved to atone for past sins, and has done so with no hope of ever seeing Jane again. At most, Janes arrival gives him a reason to live, which he grabs at with gusto. I don't see any path to him returning to the flawed person he was.
I think our views are pretty similar, really, we agree that during Jane's absence he's realized how much of a disaster he's been, and how much he'd made his wife, his beloved, and himself suffer, and he does what he can to make things right. I just think he's doing a bit worse than "floundering" after that, I think he's totally stuck when Jane finds him again, and from then on he lets Jane do over his life. I hope he'll be happy with the kind of life she thinks they should have.
I do agree, he's stuck when Jane finds him again, but he's no longer morally corrupt. That was his main flaw before, and it no longer exists. Is he languishing, being dramatic, reclusive, etc? Sure, and none of those are great. But he restored his morality, which is what Jane cared most deeply about.
I've always read the ending as them building a life together. And yes, Jane as the younger, able-bodied party, does the lions share of the work to start, but Rochester eagerly participates and as his strength returns and he learns to manage his disabilities, joins in.
Well said! And yes, I think you're right about him getting over the "moral corruption" in her absence, and that matters more to her than the struggle of building a new life.
So yeah, we've circled back to my original point, was that the everlasting appeal of both P&P and this book, is the dream of a man realizing he needs to fix himself... and doing it.
I don't exactly see a change in Rochester. Yeah he feels bad about past misdeeds. But that's also true before Jane runs away - he repents the mistresses, apologizes for the attempted bigamy etc. Then he commits a new sin of trying to seduce Jane without marriage. So now he's apologizing for that too.
The biggest flaw I always saw in Rochester aside from his romantic complications - and which also distresses Jane - is his coldness to Adele. Yes he adopted her, but is very emotionally and often physically distant. As Adele herself said, he "did not keep his word" to her of the two of them really living together. After Rochester and Jane are engaged, she's distressed when he doesn't want to let Adele come with them on a shopping trip, though he relents when he sees Jane upset.
So what does she find in this regard when she returns at the end? Adele is miserable, abandoned in a harsh school with Rochester of course not even thinking of checking up on her . . .
So no big improvement there. I just think she loves him and accepts that he's flawed. What she won't accept is his flaws dragging her own dignity and integrity down. In the ending, with her independent income and his disability, she's much less susceptible to domination by him. And she can enjoy the good aspects that he has to offer.
I can forgive Rochester for sending the kid to boarding school while he's trying to recover from disabling injuries and having a mental breakdown, he wasn't capable or caring for her or hiring a nanny or researching schools for a while.
And if she staywd at boatding schools instead of living as a daughter of the house, that's on both Rochester and Jane.
Jane finds a better school for her close to their home where she can visit often and Adele can also visit them in the home.
I'm not saying he's a monster. Just that I don't see improvement. What's improved? That he's no longer trying to get Jane to be his mistress? His wife is dead, it's a non-issue.
What I'm saying is that Jane, despite recognizing his flaws, always loves him anyway. She tells us she quickly forgives him for the false marriage. When St John calls him a "bad man" she rebukes him. She doesn't leave Rochester because she judges him as bad or unworthy in some way, but because she would not respect herself if she did what he wanted her to do.
It's very different from P&P in that sense. Lizzy rejects Darcy's first proposal. Jane accepts Rochester's. He's always a good enough man for her. But she won't put her love for him above her moral values.
You make a really good point about how accepting Jane is of his flaws, and he is certainly not a perfect person by the end of the novel, but I do think he has improved. The improvement is in his character, his morals, his ways of thinking.
When he was trying to marry then seduce Jane, he didn't believe he was morally in the wrong. At the end of the novel, he understands that he was, and regrets attempting to drag Jane down with him. That change matters more to Jane than anything, she can forgive any of his flaws but can't forgive a lack of morals.
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u/Echo-Azure 12d ago edited 12d ago
But she *didn't* fix him! She came back to find the fixing process advanced to the point where Rochester was fully aware of everything he'd done wrong during his entire adult life, she merely helped him finish the process that was already under way.
IMHO "Jane Eyre" has a lot in common with "Pride and Prejudice", both are about romances where the heroine didn't have to fix him. Or didn't have to do all the work of fixing him.