Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre"

As a girl who grew up wanting to be a librarian, I’ve read Jane Eyre probably at least four or five times.  I remember being disappointed after reading it as a teenager; wasn’t I supposed to fall in love with it?  Certainly it was more palatable than Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice, (what exactly is the the draw of Mr. Darcy?) but still, it didn’t grab me the way I had always been told that it would.  If Jane truly loved Rochester, she would have accepted him for what he could offer, and understood how he was trapped in a loveless marriage.  But then I read it again in my early twenties, and appreciated Jane’s independence, and in my early thirties I found that I admired Jane’s strength as she turned Rochester away, and now I’ve read it again and see Jane as a true virtuous heroine.

Stephen seemed to be surprised that I had no pity for Rochester.  I think this is a combination of several factors.  First, I know that Rochester is married.  I’ve read this book four times.  I see the selfish deceit in his every action towards Jane.  Where to Jane he comes across as playful and mischievous, I see manipulative and cruel.  As a mature woman in modern days, I would be horrified to find that a married man had set out to woo me, purposefully embroiling me in his lies and immorality and betrayal of his wedding vows. How could a man who loved me think that I would willingly be complicit in this kind of behaviour?  He’s a competent, but unloving father to Adele as well, a man who may be following some moral code, but unable or unwilling to make an emotional connection with the child; without Jane in the house, Adele would have a home as emotionally bereft as Jane’s was.

In the context of the time, and within the context of a novel, Rochester the character is also breaking divine law by attempting to be a bigamist.  In ancient Greece he would be cursed, as would Jane, as would their entire lineage.  He’s figuratively, and of course literally, playing with fire.

No, I have no pity for Rochester.  Jane deserves better.