In Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, the character, Edward Rochester is put in a very difficult situation. After hiring Jane Eyre as a governess, he falls in love with her. However, he already has a wife—Bertha Mason. Hidden from society, Bertha is declared to be mad and is therefore locked in secrecy on the third floor of the household. Mr. Rochester is incapable to divorce his wife. In this dilemma, Mr. Rochester decides to keep Bertha a secret and continue to marry Jane as if Bertha didn’t exist, only for the fact to be made known on his wedding day. Once knowing this, Jane, feeling betrayed, leaves Thornfield and Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester’s actions brought him only hardship, and almost cost him the person he loved most. While Mr. Rochester
While tutoring, Eyre begins to overhear strange, guttural peals of laughter coming from upstairs. When she inquires about it she is told that it is the servant Grace Poole. Eyre suspects the staff is hiding something but does not investigate further and soon she forgets all about it. A few months later when Eyre and Rochester about to wed a clergyman comes to inform them that he cannot marry them. A search of the marriage records reveals that Rochester has a wife that is still living. A witness confirms seeing her at Thornfield Hall. Rochester reveals that he indeed married to a Bertha Mason. He explains that he married her unaware that “she came from a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations.” They all ride to Thornfield Hall to show the clergyman his wife. Locked in an upstairs room, Bertha Mason resembles a “strange wild animal…[with a] bloated…purple face.” Upon seeing Rochester, she rushes at him, attempting to throttle him. But Rochester manages to restrain her and binds her to a chair.
To set the stage in “Jane Eyre” our Protagonist, Jane Eyre is deceived by Mr.Rochester, one of the antagonists in order to “protect” his love, Jane. Mr. Rochester’s deception begins
Rochester that she doesn’t even take a glance at Rochester’s past and the ironic events which took place at the Thornfield Hall. To her when she finds out from kind Mr. Richard Mason, Bertha’s beloved brother, that Bertha is an insane first Mrs. Rochester, she just runs away to avoid the temptation.
Jane Eyre is a powerful novel with many secrets in the storyline between the characters. One of the most shocking secrets was finding out that Rochester has a wife. Since his older brother would inherit his father's fortune, Rochester needed to secure his own future with a marriage for the sake of money, not love. So, he married Bertha, who was both wealthy and beautiful.
When Jane enters Thornfield she thinks she is going to work for a woman named Mrs. Fairfax, but she does not. She works for a mysterious man name Mr. Rochester. This man is going to be an import aspect of Jane’s life. Jane works as a governess to a young girl named Adele. Jane encounters Mr. Rochester when she goes for a walk and runs into Rochester, whose horse is injured. After the encounter Jane and Rochester start to gain interest into each other. Mr. Rochester is a man with a large amount of money and Jane is a woman with very little money, the fact that she works for Mr. Rochester defies their unprofessional relationship. “Like governesses, these marriages between older men and younger women were viewed with great ambivalence during the Victorian period”(Godfrey). Both characters develop strong feelings for one another and become close to getting married but a discovery of a secret puts the marriage to a halt. After
Through a close reading of the selected passage of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, a reader can see that Jane attempts to separate herself from her decisions by personifying her emotions and giving them a specific voice, which strongly reflects the societal views of the time. At this point in the story, Jane has discovered, on her wedding day, that Mr. Rochester is still married to a woman named Bertha, and that woman still lives in his house. Distraught, Jane locks herself in her room and tries to decide what she should do. When she wakes up the next day, she is again confronted with what she needs to do in the wake of her discovery.
Though Jane is well educated and possesses the etiquette and training of a person in upper class society, social prejudices limit her because she is simply a paid servant, in their eyes. While at Thornfield, Jane falls desperately in love with the owner of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester. Jane is Mr. Rochester’s intellectual contemporary, but her social status prevents her from being his true equal. In the novel, Jane proclaims, “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!” (Bronte 637). After Mr. Rochester finally proposes, Jane is hesitant to marry him because she feels as if he would be lowering himself to marry her. This feeling greatly increases after Jane discovers he is married to Bertha Mason, and that he keeps her locked away in Thornfield’s attic due to her insanity. Mr. Rochester proposes that Jane becomes his mistress, which, according to Victorian society, would be more fitting since Jane is a plain governess. Jane realizes that she can never compromise her morals that way and leaves Thornfield. While on her own, Jane still strives to gain independence, discovers new kin, and learns she has a wealthy uncle who has left her a large inheritance. After her loneliness and longing for Mr. Rochester becomes too great, she returns to Thornfield. Jane is
Happily ever after. Too often in novels and fables conclude with forced, fantastical endings designed to match ideal scenarios. In doing so, authors compromise their work’s themes as realistic lessons give way to improbable outcomes. However, in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, imperfection is embraced in the titular protagonist’s relationship with Mr. Rochester, offering a worthy commentary on romance through a woman’s viewpoint. Erica Jong’s introduction to the novel analyzes Jane Eyre’s significance on women’s empowerment in the context of love. Nevertheless, Jong’s assertion regarding male arrogance, female independence, and affection requires qualification. Rather, removing male arrogance and fostering female independence in the minds of both individuals are the keys to lasting love between the sexes.
Mr. Rochester has had a life full of struggle and is dissatisfied on the whole. After being tricked into a marriage with a madwoman, Mr. Rochester feels trapped. Then follows a life of dissipation and shallow affairs, which leads him to despise himself. It is after he has tried all attempts to find true love that Jane enters his life as the perfect woman for him.
Also, even though Rochester and Jane were of different classes, Charlotte Bronte presents him as an intelligent person. Both Edward and Jane enjoy conversations with each other. However, Jane does not express her feelings as clearly as Rochester does. So he dresses up as a gypsy and tries to find out what she thinks of the marriage, which everyone assumes that he will with Blanche. Although, both Jane Eyre and Rochester have are fond of each other, Edward was deceitful to Jane. For example, when Jane found out about Mr Rochester’s first wife, he first says that they can run away as ‘brother and sister’. However Jane refuses. Rochester tries another tactic and asks her to be his mistress. But Jane was too virtuous to accept the offer and had no other alternative but to leave Thornfield.
” Critics have accused Jane Eyre (the character) of cowardice and Jane Eyre (the novel) of inconsistency: even duplicity: Jane is a coward when she runs away from Rochester, unable to meet his love’s challenge;” (Shapiro, 681). When Jane fleas Thornfield after the realisation of Rochester’s previous marriage to Bertha, Jane is seen to be a coward. However, Jane leaves Thornfield not because she is a coward but because she respects her strong morals and believes that staying with Rochester would contradict all she believes in. Jane’s decision to leave Thornfield is courageous. When Rochester apologizes and pleas for forgiveness, Jane is silent but admits to the reader that she forgave him immediately. Jane shows strength in her silence for all she wants to do is forgive Rochester and live happily ever after. Rochester then continues to explain why he does not consider himself a married man. Jane feels ambivalent, she does not want to leave Rochester vulnerable to more misfortune, she does not want to part with the love of her life, and she wonders if she will ever find another man with whom she can share the same unconditional love. However, her conscience tells her that she must respect her principals. Jane chooses her head over her heart and leaves Rochester. This symbolises Jane’s strength and highlights that her desire for equality and her moral attitude overrides her desire for
In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë clearly demonstrates the relationship between sexuality and morality in Victorian society through the character of Bertha Mason, the daughter of a West Indian planter and Rochester's first wife. Rochester recklessly married Bertha in his youth, and when it was discovered shortly after the marriage that Bertha was sexually promiscuous, Rochester locked her away. Bertha is called a "maniac" and is characterized as insane. Confining Bertha for her display of excess passion reinforces a prevalent theme in Jane Eyre, that of oppressive sexual Victorian values. Bertha's captivity metaphorically speaks on the male-dominated Victorian society
Rochester. At first Jane sees him as rude and disrespectful due to his cold and gruesome remarks, but it is her fight and how Jane stands up for herself that leads to one of the most known relationships in literature. Eventually Rochester asks Jane for her hand in marriage but at the scene of the wedding, we come to learn, that Rochester is already married to an insane woman, living in his attic, named Bertha. With this Rochester asks Jane to run away with her to Europe, this is exactly where Jane is faced with a very hard decision between following her heart as everyone wants to do, or keeping her respect and dignity. We can see the respect Jane now has from Rochester when he says to her, “I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character” (Bronte 354). This shows that Jane has gained Rochester’s respect and the ‘stubbornness’ in Jane’s character is the best thing for her, for without this trait Jane could never gain respect from others, especially men, in his novel. Knowing that Jane has decided to leave her, Rochester begins to persuade Jane to stay with him. He says, “Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This – this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me” (Bronte 355). Jane replies, “It would to obey you” (Bronte 355), showing that she will not give into his pleading, regardless of how much she loves him because to obey him would lead to the loss
The major criticisms of the novel in question to be the melodrama used by the author and the wickedness of character shown in Jane and Mr. Rochester. While most critics admired the style of writing and truth of character portrayal, they did not admire the improbability of circumstances or the characters portrayed.
Bertha Mason, although a minor character in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre , played a crucial role in the love story between Jane and Rochester and gives a deeper understanding of how mentally impaired people were treated at the time. She is necessary to Jane and Rochester’s imminent marriage and her actions lead the two to reconcile. Her motives and the causes for behavior are unclear, besides her obvious jealousy towards Jane and betrayal she felt from Rochester. Not only that, but Bertha also symbolizes everything Jane is not, mirroring her in a way as a polar opposite.