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The Evolution of Rochester's Character in Jane Eyre

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Charlotte Brontë

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Edward Fairfax Rochester Quotes in Jane Eyre

Character Analysis of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre

How is Mr. Rochester presented in Jane Eyre?

Table of Contents

Introduction

Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester  does not strike us as a very amiable man when we first meet him; and even afterwards we do not feel that he is adorable as a hero in a novel is generally expected to be.  He is by no means a handsome man ; and he is no longer young when he falls in love with a girl who is barely half his age. Thus we are likely to frown at the love-affair which develops between him and the eighteen-year-old  Jane Eyre .

At the outset, he seems to us to be a serious-minded and harsh man with a sullen disposition. He has always treated his ward, Adele with kindness and generosity, and yet he often becomes impatient when she tries to talk to him freely. His initial conversations with Jane also show him to be a rather staid kind of man or a man who is all the time stiff and even inflexible.

Mr. Rochester’s Reckless Past

There is another unpleasant aspect of his personality, and, in fact, this is an even more unpleasant aspect than his harsh nature and apparently unsocial attitude to life. This unpleasant feature of his character is the dissolute life which he has led in the past. He has had several amours or improper sexual relationships with women. Of course, he gives Jane enough reasons to justify his deviations from the code of social morality. But his account of his past love-affairs certainly leaves an unpleasant taste in our mouths.

Mr. Rochester’s Betrayal of Jane’s Trust in Him

Is mr. rochester a villain .

In one respect, he is likely to appear to most readers as almost a villain . He has hidden from every inmate of Thornfield Hall, with the sole exception of a maidservant of the name of Grace Poole, the fact that he is an already married man with a wife who is still alive and who is living in that very house in which he resides. His keeping this fact a secret from everybody is no offence, morally or legally. But he becomes guilty of a serious offence, both morally and legally, when he hides the fact of being already married from Jane with whom he has fallen ardently and passionately in love, and when, furthermore, he tries to marry once more and thus commit bigamy.

Mr. Rochester’s Redeeming Qualities

Is mr. rochester a sympathetic character.

All this shows the dark side of Mr. Rochester’s character . But he does have certain redeeming qualities. Beneath his harsh nature, is his capacity to laugh, to make others laugh, to make merry, to entertain people, and to perform acts of kindness . He is extraordinarily kind to Adele even though she is in no way related to him. He has a strong sense of humour, and he can make witty remarks. He keeps his guests amused by devising all sorts of entertainments for them such as charades. His sense of humour is also revealed to us by his assuming the disguise of an old gypsy woman to befool his guests.

Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre Relationship

His chief redeeming quality, however, is his passionate love for Jane, and his constancy in love. The whole world, they say, loves a lover.  Mr. Rochester  is an ardent lover who yearns for Jane even though he does not, for quite some time, let her know about the passion which is raging in his breast. It is when he proposes marriage to her that he shows his fervor in love. He tells her that he loves her as much he loves his own flesh; and he then urges her to say “yes” to his proposal without a moment’s delay. There is not only urgency in his proposal of marriage but an intensity of passion. Later, when the marriage ceremony has been abandoned, and when Jane has decided to quit Thornfield Hall, he appeals to her not to forsake him. But her mind is made up. He then entreats, implores her, and even threatens to use violence against her, all because he does not want to lose her. Thus, as a lover, he certainly earns our regard and esteem.

• Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre as a Feminist Novel

Mr. Rochester : An “Impossible” Character

Mr. Rochester has been regarded by many critics as an “impossible” character, and we partly share this view. He has basically a jovial, almost gay, nature; but outwardly he assumes a look of harshness and even severity. He is an excellent singer, an excellent player on the piano, and an excellent entertainer, and yet his outward solemnity and gloom is a mask which he wears.

Mr. Rochester  is a unique kind of man, as  Jane Eyre  is a unique kind of woman. A man, who is forty years old, has captured the heart and fancy of a girl who is only twenty years old. There must be indeed something fascinating about him. Edward Rochester belongs quite simply to the great family of Mirabeau (a French statesman), stormy, equivocal, powerful, and attractive.

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3 thoughts on “Character Analysis of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre”

Soo helpful god bless uh u have reduced my burdenn thnkyuuuuuuuu soooooooo muchhhhhhh

Rochester is a typical narcissist. Charming, but without a scruple. He was not only willing to risk Jane’s happiness and reputation, but also take away from her any chance of a real marriage and financial stability should the truth come out, which inevitably it would have.

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Sorry, but Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be

Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.

George Smith did not know it, but he was about to meet the world’s most famous author. It was 1848. Currer Bell, author of Jane Eyre , was the most sought-after—and most mysterious—writer in the world. Even Smith, who edited and published the book, had never met the enigmatic author, a first-time novelist who had nonetheless turned down his suggestions for revision, thanking him for the advice, then announcing the intention to ignore it.

Bell had been right, of course, and Smith wrong. The book, and Bell’s identity, was the talk of London. And now, a very small woman stood before Smith, clutching one of Bell’s letters in her hand. She was Currer Bell, she told him. She was the author of Jane Eyre .

If life were like literature, Smith would have fallen in love with her then and there. Passionate, deeply intelligent, outspoken, and charmingly unaffected—Charlotte Brontë was an arresting, complex woman. If he did not love her already, he could learn: They would soon strike up a lively and close correspondence that lasted years. And Charlotte was charmed by his good looks and his bright, open personality. But Jane Eyre ’s diminutive author was no romantic heroine, and real life is not a romance.

Jane Eyre is, though. Right? The answer to that question is up for debate.

It might seem like sacrilege to question the (small r) romanticism of Jane Eyre , a story that centers on the obsessive love of a teenage governess and her decades-older boss. Over the last 172 years, the book has become a touchstone for passionate love, that once-in-a-lifetime spark we are taught to long for. Even today, the book is the subject of swoony listsicles (“11 Romantic Quotes from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre ”) and essays that uphold it as “a romance novel for the modern, intelligent woman.”

But when it was published, the bestselling book incensed readers even as it seduced them. It was condemned as immoral, unfit for women’s eyes, all but fomenting revolution. And for modern scholars, its undercurrents of rage, motherlessness , colonialism , slavery , circus freakery , and even incest (!) are more compelling than its caresses.

“The early reviews of Jane Eyre strike us today as naive and misinformed,” writes Lisa Sternlieb. She lists off common critiques of the book as anti-Christian and deeply hypocritical, including one that said that “never was there a greater hater than Charlotte Brontë.” “Yet I would argue that these reviewers hit on an element of truth in the novel,” Sternlieb muses.

Hatred. Insurrection. Patriarchy. Not exactly romantic themes. Readers have always picked up on the tension between the book’s revolutionary subtexts and its uneasy relationship with love. To twenty-first-century eyes, it shows a woman who fights for, yet abdicates to, love. To nineteenth-century eyes, it showed a woman who should abdicate to, yet fights for, love. In either century, readers demand that Jane Eyre should do cultural labor that it steadfastly resists. Its author resists our attempts at that labor, too. For Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.

Charlotte’s life was not that of her heroine, and Jane Eyre is no autobiography. But by the time her most famous book was published, Charlotte was 31 years old, and an expert in the strangling, diminishing kind of romance she bequeathed her heroine.

It wasn’t always that way. As a child, she seemed marked for love. It was part and parcel of the fantasy world that enveloped her everyday life: a fictitious kingdom called Angria, which she wrote into being with her younger brother, Branwell . In what amounted to a competitive literary apprenticeship, they wove their fantasy land into a place of lewd thrills. Angria seethed with war, rape, rebellion, kidnapping, and revenge. It was a hotbed of the kind of love that could build a kingdom, then tear it to shreds.

That vision of love was so intense that it permeated into real life. When she was 23, Charlotte turned down a proposal from her best friend’s brother. “I had not, and never could have that intense attachment which would make me willing to die for him,” she wrote , “and if I ever marry it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard my husband.” Besides, she wrote, her suitor would think her a “wild, romantic enthusiast indeed” if he ever really got to know her.

Jane Eyre may have a wild, romantic streak, but its heroine’s love counters everything readers have been taught to desire. Neglected in childhood and traumatized at a school where she is humiliated and starved, Jane arrives at Thornfield ready to love. At first, it seems she’ll get her chance: There are romantic promises, forbidden glances, anguished prayers. But though her story delivers sexual tension and an agony of will-they-or-won’t-they that lasts into its final pages, nothing about Jane’s love is what you’d expect. Brontë drapes her book in the trappings of romance, then snatches them away, subverting our fantasies at every turn.

“Like so many other (yes) romance writers,” writes the literary critic Sandra M. Gilbert, “Charlotte Brontë created a heroine who wants to learn what love is and how to find it, just as she herself did. Unlike most of her predecessors, though, Brontë was unusually explicit in placing that protagonist amid dysfunctional families, perverse partnerships, and abusive caretakers.”

Chief among Brontë’s baits-and-switches is her hero, a brooding man readers—and Jane—are all too ready to adore. Edward Fairfax Rochester is boorish and brutal. He engages his 18-year-old employee in work talk that is the 19th-century version of #METOO employment investigation fodder. He’d fit right in with the modern “seduction community,” conducting a master class in negging as he reminds Jane of her inferiority, then compliments her wit. In one particularly repulsive episode, he messes with her mind by disguising himself as a Roma fortune teller.

Affection-starved Jane only realizes her “master” loves her after he pushes her toward an appalling apex of emotional cruelty. He intends to marry her rival, he implies. Then he changes his mind. Finally, after all but forcing her to accept his abrupt proposal, he takes her in his arms.

But Rochester’s momentary tenderness is just that—momentary. While he’s been playing dress-up and making out with a teenager beneath a tree in his Gothic garden, he’s been guilty of unforgivable cruelty, holding his first wife captive for her “intemperance” and, Brontë implies, her race. The wedding is called off, so Rochester makes one last bid for Jane’s love, begging her to stay and live with him as his bigamous mistress. It is too much to bear.

The same year she turned down her first marriage proposal, Charlotte turned away from the illicit fantasies of Angria. Both she and Branwell were in their twenties now, and they had lingered together in their imaginary world for too long.

“I have now written a great many books,” she wrote . “I long to quit for a while that burning clime where we have sojourned too long… The mind would cease from excitement & turn now to a cooler region, where the dawn breaks gray and sober & the coming day for a time at least is subdued in clouds.”

Something else threw cold water on her passions: A letter she received from Britain’s poet laureate, Robert Southey, in 1837. Charlotte had sent the poet a poem of her own, asking whether it was worth pursuing her literary ambitions. But Southey didn’t encourage her. Instead, he warned her against what he called “a distempered state of mind” that would render the mundane life of a woman intolerable. “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life,” he wrote, “and it ought not to be.” Charlotte wrote back, assuring him she’d try to write as little as possible.

A few years later, burned out on governessing and with no hopes of marriage, she continued her search for cooler climes. This time, she went to Belgium. As an adult student at a girls’ school in Brussels, Charlotte planned to acquire the “finish,” and the fluency in French, that would qualify her to run her own school in England. What she really wanted, though, was a change of scenery, an antidote to her restlessness.

She learned more than one language there. Constantin Héger, the married headmaster of the school, befriended her. He encouraged her to write, to speak her mind. For a woman who had been told there was no place for women in writing—by Britain’s most respected poet, no less—his argumentative, constructive criticisms in the margins of her essays must have had the effect of a powerful aphrodisiac. Soon she came home again, this time fleeing her obsession with Héger.

In 1913, Héger’s children published four letters from Charlotte to Héger that they had discovered among their mother’s things. Three of the four had been torn into pieces and discarded, then retrieved and carefully stitched together with paper and thread by his wife, Zoë Héger. She likely saved the letters as potential evidence; they might prove useful if Charlotte made trouble for the school. Instead, they are testimony of Charlotte’s agony.

“Day and night, I find neither rest nor peace,” she wrote . “Monsieur, the poor do not need a great deal to live on. They ask only the crumbs of bread which fall from the rich men’s table.” Charlotte was ready to take whatever crumbs he had left to give.

The author may have been hungry for crumbs, but Jane Eyre is not. When she finds out her soon-to-be-husband isn’t free to marry, she faces down his betrayal with shocked strength. When Rochester steamily suggests she move with him to France, where no one knows or cares that he’s already married, she refuses. Not that it’s not tempting. But the offer is a “silken snare,” a luxurious trap.

“While he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him,” says Jane:

They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still indomitable was the reply—“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

Maybe Charlotte’s refusal to let her heroine sin with Rochester was a rebuke to herself. Or it may have been a reminder to move forward. Jane presses on, running away from sin and toward herself. If she cannot be on equal footing with her partner, she will not have him at all.

In this sense, Jane’s flight is as much from inequality as it is from sin. Even before he copped to his attic-bound madwoman of a wife, Rochester made it clear that he wanted to own Jane. As his wife, she would have been his concubine: a petted plaything, but not an equal. Jane’s furious opposition to that—her insistence on meeting him on equal footing—riled Jane Eyre ’s critics and appalled readers.

For the literary critic Nancy Pell, Jane’s refusal of Rochester is part of a deep-rooted critique of social and economic institutions that echoes throughout the novel. By the time she falls in love, Jane knows she can fend for herself. “Knowing that she can earn thirty pounds a year as a governess,” Pell writes , “Jane rejects being hired as a mistress or bought as a slave. Once again she resolves to keep in good health and not die.”

She does more than refuse to die; she thrives. Jane escapes Thornfield and befriends the Rivers sisters and their intolerable brother, St. John, a Calvinist minister who gives her a job as a teacher in an obscure village. Coincidence then teaches her that not only are the Rivers siblings her cousins, she is an heiress. She shares the wealth, enjoying the money that has raised her out of obscurity.

Jane has one more obstacle to overcome: St. John’s insistence that she marry him and become a missionary in India. St. John is arguably even more sadistic than Rochester. He expects Jane to follow him to the ends of the earth, and to do so with a cold substitute for love.

“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife,” he tells her. “It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.”

His words could be construed as a kind of reassurance: Marital rape, he suggests, won’t be part of his bargain. But his words crack like a whip. They are the words of a man who has judged a woman’s body and found it lacking. St. John would never make out with Jane beneath a tree. If she left him, he wouldn’t beg for her to stay. He wouldn’t take her as his mistress or take her to France. The principled minister finds no pleasure in his future wife.

Certainly, Charlotte had stopped thinking of herself as a wife by the time she wrote Jane Eyre . She was too busy watching other people’s children, tending her half-blind father, and sewing shirts for her drug-addicted brother. When they were not governessing or teaching, all of the Brontë women labored alongside their servants, peeling potatoes and baking bread, tending to the endless toil of daughters, sisters. But not wives.

“I’m certainly doomed to be an old maid,” she wrote . “I can’t expect another chance—never mind I made up my mind to that fate ever since I was twelve years old.”

Spinsterdom did have its uses: It allowed Charlotte to write. Without a husband to attend to, Charlotte could spend the hours between her father’s bedtime and her own with her pen. It could be a lonely bargain, but it was one that allowed her to create Jane Eyre .

St. John’s tempting bargain—Jane Eyre’s second proposal of marriage—is the last thing that stands between her and happiness. Equipped with new knowledge and a new dismissal of the skim-milk version of love he offers, she decides that sin on her own terms is preferable to virtue on St. John’s. Turning down her cousin and returning to a man who, for all she knows, is still married, is helped along when she hears Rochester calling her name. “But indeed, Jane doesn’t merely ‘think’ of Mr. Rochester,” notes Gilbert. “Rather, in a moment of mystically orgasmic passion she virtually brings him into being.”

Jane, bolstered by her own financial security and her refusal to be diminished by a man who sees her only as a source of labor, is in a different position than she was when she left Rochester for the first time. She is ready for his call. She is ready to go to him on her own terms.

That return has vexed readers for 172 years. Jane’s seeming surrender—her willingness to re-enter a dysfunctional, if not abusive, relationship—infuriates scholars, too, especially those immersed in feminist theory.

The book is a “patriarchal love fantasy,” writes the literary scholar Jean Wyatt in an essay tellingly named “A Patriarch of One’s Own.” For Wyatt, Jane Eyre is an expression of “defiant autonomy” that nonetheless gives in to a damaging fusion with a damaging man. Jane’s eventual marriage to her “strong oak of a man” dupes readers, Wyatt suggests:

The apparently revolutionary nature of Jane’s egalitarian marriage allows an old fantasy to get by the ideological censors of her readers, so that we all, feminists and Harlequin romance readers alike, can enjoy the unending story of having one’s patriarch all to oneself forever.

It makes for an “excruciating ending,” writes the sociologist Bonnie Zare. The completion of Jane and Rochester’s love trajectory, she writes, is painful:

For after being taken advantage of by Rochester’s abusive tricks, Jane is supposed to attain ultimate fulfillment in a subservient relationship with a husband whose devotion seems to spring mostly from his new state of physical vulnerability.

In his new wife, Zare implies, Rochester has gained an all-too-willing caretaker.

But is Jane really doomed to a life of subservience? Not exactly, says Pell. “‘An independent woman now,’ Jane reappears at Thornfield,” she writes. “She has refused to be Rochester’s mistress or St. John’s mistress of Indian schools; now she is her own mistress and her proposal to Rochester is striking… Even their marriage can hardly be considered typically Victorian. Jane possesses a great deal of money in her own right, and although Rochester is far from the helpless wreck he is sometimes taken to be, he is dependent upon Jane ‘to be helped—to be led’ until he regains his sight.”

Gilbert, too, rejects the premise that Jane Eyre demeans herself by returning to Rochester. “In a proud denial of St. John’s insulting insistence that she is ‘formed for labor, not for love,’ she chooses—and wins—a destiny of love’s labors,” she writes. “There can be no question… that what Jane calls the ‘pleasure in my services’ both she and Rochester experience in their utopian woodland is a pleasure in physical as well as spiritual intimacy, erotic as well as intellectual communion.”

In the 1840s, Jane’s love for herself was so subversive it bordered on revolution. In 2019, her love of Rochester is so shocking it borders on treason. In any era, its relationship to the love it explores is uneasy, volatile. Nearly two centuries after it was published, Jane Eyre confounds every expectation.

After they met in person, Charlotte and her editor began a correspondence that can only be described as stimulating. She already knew that Smith loved her writing—when she sent him the draft of Jane Eyre , it captivated him so much that he read it through in one sitting, neglecting visitors and appointments as he rushed through the story.

It almost seemed possible that their friendship was something deeper. When Charlotte visited London, Smith begged her to stay at his house. He treated her to every amusement the city could afford. They traveled together, through London and even to Scotland, often chaperoned by his mother or sister. They even went to a phrenologist together, delighting in her anonymity and the practitioner’s pronouncement that Charlotte’s head was “very remarkable.” She wrote him into one of her books as a handsome, good-natured love interest. When they were apart, they wrote long, chatty letters, dissecting the literary news of the day.

Though only Charlotte’s half of the correspondence survived, it is honest and remarkably open. At times it is sparkling and witty. It verges on flirty, and then it falls apart.

It’s not clear how Charlotte reacted in private when George Smith told her he was engaged to be married, but her choked response was not flirty or chatty or fun:

My dear Sir In great happiness, as in great grief—words of sympathy should be few. Accept my meed of congratulation—and believe me Sincerely yours C. Brontë

Twenty-eight words, each smarting with disappointment.

A few months earlier, something strange had happened to Charlotte Brontë: She had become an object of unrequited love. The admirer in question was Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate. It was surreal to be the one pined for, the one whose crumbs were gladly gathered. When he declared himself, she told her father, who exploded. “If I had loved Mr. N—and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used,” she told a friend, “it would have transported me past my patience.”

But she did not love him, yet. It took years of moping and quiet persuasion—and perhaps Smith’s marriage—for her to decide to marry Nicholls, a man she had previously scorned as stupid and unromantic. Finally, she agreed, though she had deep reservations. During a pre-nuptial conversation with two of her friends, the kind of conversation in which virgin women asked more experienced friends about their marital obligations, Charlotte confided that she worried about what marriage might cost her. “I cannot conceal from myself that he is not intellectual,” she said .

Marriage did exact a price. Though Charlotte Nicholls loved her husband, he constricted her. He was horrified by the personal issues she discussed in her longstanding correspondence with Ellen Nussey, a friend since childhood.

“Arthur complains that you do not distinctly promise to burn my letters as you receive them,” she wrote in 1854, four months after her wedding. “He says you must give a plain pledge to that effect—or he will read every line I write and elect himself censor of our correspondence.”

Nussey agreed, grudgingly. Then she disobeyed him. We owe her much of what we know of Charlotte Brontë.

“Faultless he is not,” Charlotte wrote wryly, “but as you well know—I did not expect perfection.” She loved her husband, loved the settled life they led together. But later, she admitted that she had stopped writing: “My own life is more occupied than it used to be: I have not so much time for thinking.”

Did Charlotte kill herself by handing over her intellectual and physical well-being? Perhaps. She died soon after, likely from dehydration following severe morning sickness. But her nine months of marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls were among the happiest of her life.

“There was but little feminine charm about her, and of this fact she herself was uneasily and perpetually conscious,” George Smith wrote decades later. “I believe that she would have given all her genius and fame to have been beautiful. Perhaps few women ever existed more anxious to be pretty than she, or more angrily conscious of the circumstance that she was not pretty.”

Those lines jump out from an otherwise respectful, even loving, memoir of his time with Charlotte Brontë. Smith certainly wasn’t the first person to notice that Charlotte’s nose and mouth were large, that she was missing teeth and so nearsighted she crouched over books and papers. But his assessment—his assumption that Brontë’s unease in public was due to discomfort with her physical appearance instead of, say, being unused to city life or worried about being recognized by readers or fearful of meeting her critics in person—is disappointing.

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In the end, even George Smith, who had had direct access to so many of Charlotte’s thoughts and feelings, and whom she admired so much, felt the need to snipe about her appearance instead of assessing her legacy or engaging with her body of work. Even those who cared most about Charlotte Brontë underestimated her, even after they knew she had made a deliberate choice to write a disquieting story about a plain woman in love.

“I will prove to you that you are wrong,” she reportedly told her sisters during a debate on how to write heroines. “I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”

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by Charlotte Bronte

Jane eyre essay questions.

How does Charlotte Brontë incorporate elements of the Gothic tradition into the novel?

In the Gothic literary tradition, the narrative structure of a text is meant to evoke a sense of horror or suspense, often through the use of the supernatural, hidden secrets, mysterious characters, and dark passion. Brontë incorporates each of these elements into the novel and especially highlights the importance of the mysterious Byronic hero in the form of Mr. Rochester. Brontë also emphasizes the Gothic nature of Thornfield Hall and incorporates the figure of the Madwoman in the Attic as the primary conflict of the novel. Brontë uses these Gothic elements as a way to heighten the tension and emotion over the course of the narrative, as well as to reveal an almost supernatural connection between Jane and Mr. Rochester.

Is Jane Eyre a likable protagonist? Why or why not?

Jane is an atypical heroine for the Victorian period, and even for contemporary literature, because she is not beautiful in a traditional sense. Unlike Georgiana and Blanche Ingram, who are each lauded as exceptional beauties in the text, Jane is small and slight, with ordinary features and a slightly elvish appearance. With that in mind, Jane is particularly likable protagonist because she is not an idealized figure; her personal and physical faults make her seem more realistic and allow readers to relate to her more closely. At the same time, however, Jane's firm morality and harsh rejection of Mr. Rochester may seem rather cold and unlikable to the more passionate readers. Still, Jane's independent spirit and courage against all obstacles ensure that she is a protagonist to be valued and encouraged.

How does Jane Eyre compare to Bertha Mason?

As the stereotypical Madwoman in the Attic, Bertha is presented as a clear antagonist to Jane in the novel. Not only does she personify the chaos and dark animal sensuality that contrasts so sharply to Jane's calm morality, Bertha is ultimately the sole obstacle between Jane and Mr. Rochester and their eventual happiness. However, while Jane and Bertha seem to be wholly distinct from each other, Bronte does suggest that the two characters have significant similarities. Although Jane is calm and controlled as an adult, she exhibits much of the same passion and bestiality as a child that Bertha displays in her madness. Moreover, though Jane leaves Thornfield rather than become Mr. Rochester's mistress, she still possesses the same qualities of sensuality as Bertha but is simply more successful at suppressing them.

How does the novel comment on the position of women in Victorian society?

As a woman, Jane is forced to adhere to the strict expectations of the time period. Thought to be inferior to men physically and mentally, women could only hope to achieve some sort of power through marriage. As a governess, Jane suffers under an even more rigid set of expectations that highlight her lower-class status. With this social construct in mind, Jane has a submissive position to a male character until the very end of the novel. At Lowood, she is subservient to Mr. Brocklehurst; at Moor House, she is under the direct control of St. John Rivers; and even at Thornfield, she is in a perpetually submissive position to Mr. Rochester. Over the course of the narrative, Jane must escape from each of these inferior positions in an effort to gain her own independence from male domination. After her uncle leaves her his fortune, Jane is able to achieve this independence and can marry Mr. Rochester on her own terms, as an equal. Yet, Bronte emphasizes that Jane's sudden inheritance and resulting happy ending are not typical for women during the time period. Under most circumstances, Jane would be forced to maintain a subservient position to men for her entire life, either by continuing her work as a governess or by marrying an oppressive husband.

Considering his treatment of Bertha Mason, is Mr. Rochester a sympathetic or unsympathetic character?

Although Mr. Rochester's treatment of Bertha may seem to be cruel, it is difficult not to feel some sympathy for his situation. Mr. Rochester married Bertha under false pretenses; he was unaware of her hereditary madness and was swept away by her exotic beauty and charm. After discovering his wife's madness, Mr. Rochester does not cast her out but rather attempts to make her life as comfortable as possible. Although Bertha's chamber in Thornfield seems inhumane, it is important to note that the conditions in madhouses of the time period would have been far worse. Mr. Rochester also is more sympathetic when we consider his extreme unhappiness and loneliness: he was fooled by the appearance of love and has been paying for his mistake ever since.

How does Mr. Rochester compare to St. John Rivers?

Throughout the novel, Bronte associates Mr. Rochester with fire and passion and St. John Rivers with ice and cold detachment. Bronte also presents Jane's potential union with each man as profoundly different. With Mr. Rochester, Jane would be forced to sacrifice her morality and sense of duty for the sake of passion. With St. John Rivers, however, Jane would have to sacrifice all sense of passion for the sake of religious duty. Significantly, Bronte also suggests that St. John may not be too different from Mr. Rochester. He is passionately in love with Rosamond Oliver, and his feelings for Rosamond seem to mirror Mr. Rochester's fiery emotions for Jane. However, St. John forces himself to suppress his feelings in favor of a cold evangelical exterior and, as a result, lives his life in solitude.

Why is Jane unable to stay with Mr. Rochester after his marriage to Bertha Mason is revealed?

Although Jane is very much in love with Mr. Rochester, she is unable to give in to the passion that she feels. Her eight years at Lowood School and her conversations with Helen Burns taught her the importance of suppressing passion and lust with morality and a sense of duty. If Jane were to stay with Mr. Rochester, it could only be as his mistress, and Jane is unwilling to sacrifice her sense of right and wrong in order to placate her personal desires. However, because Jane's love for Mr. Rochester is so strong, she realizes that she will be unable to resist him and her own desires if she remains at Thornfield Manor. Thus, when Jane leaves Thornfield, she sacrifices her personal happiness in order to save them both from committing a sin that would destroy the purity of their love.

What is the significance of Charlotte Brontë ending the novel with a statement from St. John Rivers?

In the last chapter of the novel, Brontë describes Jane's happiness with Mr. Rochester: they have married, had children, and Mr. Rochester has regained sight in one of his eyes. Yet, instead of ending the book on this happy note, Brontë concludes the novel with a letter from St. John in India in which he mentions a premonition of his death. St. John has done his duty to God by working as a missionary in India, but his existence still seems small and lonely in comparison to the joyous life that Jane has made with Mr. Rochester. Brontë suggests that even the most pious life is meaningless if it is devoid of love. St. John has a chance for love with Rosamond Oliver, but he sacrificed his happiness with her because he did not believe that love could co-exist with religion. Jane's ending with Mr. Rochester demonstrates the falsity of St. John's beliefs and reminds the readers of what could have happened to Jane if she had given up her love for Mr. Rochester.

What is the role of family in the novel?

The novel traces Jane's development as an independent individual, but it can also be read as a description of her personal journey to find her family. In each of the five stages of the novel, Jane searches for the family that she has never known. At Gateshead, the Reed family is related to her by blood and, while Bessie serves as a sort of surrogate maternal figure, Jane is unable to receive the true love and affection that she desires. At Lowood, Jane finds another maternal figure in the form of Miss Temple, but again, the school does not become a true home to her. When Jane reaches Thornfield and meets Mr. Rochester, she finally finds the love and family for which she has thirsted: Thornfield becomes her home because of her love for Mr. Rochester. However, because of Mr. Rochester's existing marriage to Bertha Mason (a union which nullifies any of Jane's familial connections to the Manor), Jane must move on and attempt to replace the family that she has now lost. Ironically, when Jane stays at Moor House, she actually discovers her true family: the Rivers siblings are her cousins. Yet, Jane's true sense of family remains with the love she feels for Mr. Rochester and, by returning to him at Ferndean and finally accepting his marriage proposal, she is able to fulfill her desire for a true family at last.

How does the novel relate to Charlotte Brontë's personal life?

Many aspects of the novel are autobiographical. Lowood School is based on the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge, where Jane and her sisters studied after their mother's death. Brontë's school has similarly poor conditions, and Brontë modeled Mr. Brocklehurst after the Reverend William Carus Wilson, an evangelical minister who managed the school. Brontë also informed the death of Helen Burns by recalling the deaths of her two sisters during a fever outbreak at their school. John Reed's descent into gambling and alcoholism relates to the struggles of Brontë's brother, Patrick Branwell, during the later years of his life. Most importantly, Jane's experience as a governess were modeled directly on Brontë's own experiences as a governess in wealthy families.

Jane Eyre Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Jane Eyre is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why did Jane go to the party?

Jane attends the party out of curiosity, she leaves because Rochester's guests are rude and arrogant.

What is it that you most admire about Jane?

I think this is asking for your opinion rather than mine. What do you admire about Jane? Is it her sense of independence as a woman in a patriarchal culture? Is it her thirst for education? Is it her resilience?

Why was Jane so invested in the ingrams?

I think your quesstion is embodied in the character of Blanche Ingram. The young and beautiful society lady who is Jane's primary romantic rival. Jane is convinced that the haughty Miss Ingram would be a poor match for Mr. Rochester, but she...

Study Guide for Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a book by Charlotte Brontë. The Jane Eyre study guide contains a biography of Charlotte Bronte, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Jane Eyre
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Essays for Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a novel by Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

• Women in Literature: Examining Oppression Versus Independence in Henry V and Jane Eyre
• Jane Eyre: The Independent and Successful Woman Of the Nineteenth Century
• Mystery and Suspense
• In Search of Permanence
• Jane's Art and Story

Lesson Plan for Jane Eyre

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Jane Eyre
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Jane Eyre Bibliography

E-Text of Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is an e-text that contains the full text of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

• Chapters 1-5
• Chapters 6-10
• Chapters 11-15
• Chapters 16-20

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Charlotte Brontë

• Literature Notes
• Essay Questions
• Jane Eyre at a Glance
• Book Summary
• About Jane Eyre
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Chapters 2-3
• Chapters 6-7
• Chapters 14-15
• Chapters 18-19
• Chapters 24-25
• Chapters 28-29
• Chapter 38-Conclusion
• Character Analysis
• Edward Fairfax Rochester
• St. John Rivers
• Character Map
• Charlotte Brontë Biography
• Critical Essays
• A Marxist Approach to the Novel
• A Jungian Approach to the Novel
• A Postcolonial Approach to the Novel
• Full Glossary
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Study Help Essay Questions

1. Explain the importance of paranormal experiences in the novel. What do the characters learn from dreams and visions? How do these experiences modify your understanding of the characters? How do the supernatural elements interact with the novel's realism?

2. Discuss the representations of the various women in the novel: Mrs. Reed, Miss Temple, Céline Varens, Blanche Ingram, Bertha Mason, and Diana and Mary Rivers. What does Jane learn about proper feminine behavior from these women? Which are positive role models? Negative?

3. Explore Jane's ideas of religion. What does she learn about Christianity from Helen Burns, Mr. Brocklehurst, and St. John Rivers? How do their views of Christianity contrast with hers? What problems does she see in their values?

4. Discuss two scenes that show the ambiguity of Jane's social class. What are Jane's opinions of the upper classes and the lower classes? What does the novel say about the social class system in England? Does Brontë critique the system or support it?

5. The narrator in the novel is an older Jane remembering her childhood. Find a few places where the voice of the older Jane intrudes on the narrative. What is the effect of this older voice's intrusions on the story? Does it increase or decrease your sympathy for the young Jane?

6. Jane gives descriptions of several of her paintings and drawings. Why are these artistic renditions important? What do they reveal about Jane's imagination? About her inner self?

7. Discuss the contrast between images of ice and fire in the novel. What moral attributes are associated with fire and with ice? How is this image pattern used to reveal personality? For example, which characters are associate with fire and which with ice? Does Jane achieve balance between fire and ice?

8. Analyze the importance of the five major places Jane lives on her journey: Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Moor House/Marsh End, and Ferndean. What do their names signify? What lessons does Jane learn at each place? Jane provides detailed descriptions of the natural world around each place: What do these descriptions reveal about their character?

9. Compare and contrast Rochester and St. John Rivers. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Why does Jane choose Rochester over St. John?

10. Discuss the representation of foreigners in the novel — Bertha and Richard Mason, Céline and Adèle Varens. How are the colonies represented? What is the source of Rochester's wealth? Of Jane's inheritance?

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Narcissism: Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester Essay

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Literature can be used as a case in point for examining the different behaviors of people and learning about the potential dangers of some psychological disorders. In Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” Mr. Rochester shows clinical signs of narcissism. He appears to care little for the feelings of others, manipulates people, and even ruins lives. This paper will explore the notion of narcissism and use examples from Bronte’s s novel to prove that Mr. Rochester is a narcissist.

Narcissism is a personality disorder, which has to be treated by a professional since this condition predisposes individuals to affect the lives of others negatively. According to Campbell and Crist, narcissism “is about self-importance, antagonism, and a sense of entitlement” (10). Hence, narcissistic person is consistently focused on themselves, and they feel that others’ actions harm them. Moreover, narcissists usually use manipulation and deceit to receive what they want (Cambell and Crist 10). The lack of regard for others, entitlement, and a desire for special treatment are what result in narcissists harming others.

The common idea of a narcissist is that it is an individual who loves only themselves and who focuses on their appearance rather than good character traits. Although in some cases, this is true, clinical narcissism manifests in an individual’s lack of affection and compassion towards others. Campbell and Crist argue that there is a spectrum of narcissistic behaviors, ranging from harmful everyday actions to horrific events such as mass shootings (15). Moreover, Campbell and Crist note two types of narcissistic behavior, grandiose and vulnerable (16). Example of the first one is high self-esteem, arrogance, and grandiose behavior. The latter, however, are shy and depressed, which makes it difficult to recognize these individuals as narcissists (Campbell and Crist 16). Regardless of how narcissism manifests, the common feature that describes this condition is careless behavior towards others.

Although this condition is serious, it is neither admirable nor deplorable. Cambell and Crist argue that narcissists are a result of improper parenting and traumatic experiences during childhood (25). Moreover, as a condition, narcissism cannot be cured, and instead, through psychotherapy, they can learn to control some of their behaviors that cause harm to others. Hence, narcissism can be viewed as a neutral condition, but one should be cautious about the impact that narcissistic behavior has on others.

Throughout Bronte’s novel, Mr. Rochester shows many signs of vulnerable narcissism. During Jane’s first years at Thornfield, she saves Mr. Rochester from a fire. The latter says that this fire was a result of a servant’s recklessness, whose name is Grace Pool, but Pool continues to work at this mansion (Bronte 30). This points to the fact that Mr. Rochester did not disclose all the details regarding the estate and the inhabitants there. As Jane later finds out, the fire, and the second one that resulted in Thronfied being burned down and Mr. Rochester being injured, is a consequence of the latter’s wife’s unstable mental health. Considering that Jane came to work and live at Thornfield, not disclosing this detail about one of the mansion’s inhabitants was a selfish act that put Ms. Eyre in danger.

Bronte’s descriptions of Mr. Rochester’s character and behavior also hint at some narcissistic traits. For example, when Jane asserts her feelings for this man, she says that he “was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description…He was moody, too…” (Bronte 67). Although Jane sees the excellent character traits of Mr. Rochester, she admits that he has many flaws, especially when considering his moral integrity. Throughout the novel, Mr. Rochester consistently behaves in a way that forces the reader to question the moral integrity of this character.

Mr. Rochester uses deceit to achieve his goals instead of being honest, which shows his entitlement and self-centeredness. During one of the interactions between Jane and Mr. Rochester, he makes Jane believe that he is engaged with another woman, Blanche Ingram (Bronte 90). In reality, he uses this information to provoke Jane and make her confess her feelings. When compared to psychologically healthy behavior, a man interested in a woman would confess his feelings directly to know if they are mutual. The use of manipulation instead of honesty is another characteristic of narcissism that Mr. Rochester shows.

His relationship with Janer is built on manipulation and counseling his true feelings. Although, in the end, the two get married, Mr. Rochester’s behavior towards Jane is questionable. Ultimately, in the novel, Mr. Rochester falls in love with Jane but cannot be honest with her. He tries to achieve his goal despite the impact that it might have on Jane’s life. Although he is married and his first wife is a captive at his mansion, Rochester asks Jane to marry him (Bronte 70). Considering the circumstances, their marriage would not be legal, and Jane would become Mr. Rochester’s mistress. The society during the Victorian era differed from today’s, and like a mistress, she would be excluded from social life. The sad circumstances of Mr. Rochester’s decisions can be seen when Jane decides to leave Thornfield and live and a street with no food (Bronte 70). Here, her superior moral qualities contrast greatly with those of Mr. Rochester, who remains at Thronfied with his first wife.

Mr. Rochester feels no compassion or empathy towards Bertha, his first wife. He describes her as a “filthy burden” since because they are married, he has to take care of her (Bronte 81). However, he keeps her locked in the mansion and hides her existence from everyone, including Jane. A more compassionate step would be to send Bertha to an asylum, where she would be cared for by professionals. However, Rochester chooses to avoid this step, perhaps because sending Bertha to asylum would mean that the general public becomes aware of her mental condition. Regardless of the reason, Mr. Rochester treats his first wife terribly and shows no remorse for his decisions regarding Bertha.

Mr. Rochester avoids direct discussions about his first wife and her mental health. While on the one hand, this subject is sensitive to him, and he does not want to address it even with people close to him, there are parts of the story that appear strange. For example, Mr. Rochester locked his first wife in his mansion, not allowing her to go out (Bronte 67). There is no definite explanation for this behavior and his unwillingness to discuss this situation. Mr. Rochester’s attitude towards Bertha is the best example of his narcissistic behavior since he cares more about concealing the truth about her illness than helping her live a quality life.

Overall, this paper explores the narcissistic traits of Mr. Rochester using examples from the novel. The relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester appears to be built on lies and the latter not telling the truth about his past. He does not care for his first wife, Bertha well-being, and chooses to hide her inside a mansion. Moreover, he uses deceit and manipulation to convince Jane to marry him, despite the impact that it would have on her social life.

Works Cited

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2020.

Campbell, Keith and Carolyn Crist. The New Science of Narcissism. Sounds True, 2020.

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IvyPanda . "Narcissism: Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester." June 22, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/narcissism-jane-eyres-mr-rochester/.