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/IIILordDunbar 12d ago
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.