Why Does Jane Eyre Fall In Love with Mr. Rochester in the First Place?
No, seriously.
I’d have this good-natured disagreement all the time with my best friend about the eligibility of Edward Fairfax Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Our disagreement was as follows: she talks about how much she hates him, and I refute her claims.
Being older and looking deeper into the characters though, I finally see what a disaster this guy is. Why now? Probably because when I thought Rochester was a good guy, I was about Jane’s age, which makes me wonder how their marriage panned out after the first few years once she turned 25. I hope Ferndean Manor doesn’t have an attic.
Enter: Jane
Oh, pure, sweet, innocent, and naive Jane. We know all of these things about her character and so does Rochester and he takes advantage of it. Picture it: a young woman with 0 self-esteem at the beginning of the novel is hired to be a governess to a girl ward in a remote location with no one there but an elderly married couple and a drunk servant. Sounds like a great situation to me. To give Jane credit though, most places would have been remote unless you lived in a metropolitan city like London.
Enter: Mr. Rochester
Pros
- Money (it ain’t easy making your own way as a woman in the 1840s).
- Has the mysterious bad-boy persona.
- Good at horseback riding, sort of.
- Never home.
Cons (and many red flags)
- He’s a straight-up liar. One example among many: he lies to Jane the whole time about himself, leaving her with the impression that he had never married. He gets her so far as the altar when we find out the truth and then he basically suggests her being his mistress while he keeps his current wife locked in the attic upstairs. No thanks.
- I’m going to add abusive (x2) here because not only does he keep his mentally ill wife captive in an attic for years (what?!) but he plays mental mind games with Jane the whole book (remember the fortune teller?)
- Jane has barely reached adulthood and this guy is what, forty?
- He always sees his ward Adele as a nuisance and never gives her the time of day, despite the relationship he had with her mother.
And with all that baggage, the guy isn’t even good-looking. What’s more, is that Rochester knows he is not a good person and tells Jane many-a-time. We can at least give him credit for that, I suppose.
Slim Pickings
Can we also note that Jane really had little to no interactions with men at all until she met Mr. Rochester? Let’s take a look at all the men before Edward:
- Her cousin John Reed (because cousins married back then): Jane basically has a hatred for him and the family he comes from. A match between the two would almost certainly not have been thought of by her or the Reed family because of the relationship she had with them.
- If you want to consider the fire and brimstone headmaster that was at her school headmaster as she grew up, sure. But he’s married. So, no.
- The drunk man in the carriage on her way to Thornfield.
- The driver of the carriage.
- That’s it.
The Proof Is In the Pudding
What’s a good argument without actual evidence?
- “Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical — is false” (Brontë, 394).
- “You look very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you…” (Brontë, 204).
At least he’s unnecessarily honest about her appearance.
- “You have seen love, have you not? — and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his happy bride?”
“Humph! Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.”
“What the devil have you seen, then?”
“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?”
“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.”
“Shortly?”
“Appearances would warrant that conclusion; and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair” (Brontë, 280–281).
Context: This is where Rochester dresses up as a gypsy and tries to get information out of Jane about how she feels about him. He tries to make her jealous by telling her he will marry the rich Miss Ingram. Yeah, sounds like a real healthy relationship.
Conclusion
Jane deserved better being the kind and selfless person she is. If I had to choose a tall, dark, and brooding rich man, I’ll stick with Mr. Darcy, thanks. Even if his name is Fitzwilliam.
***
This rant post is dedicated to my best friend, J.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Broadview Editions, 1999.
