Jane Eyre Flaws

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

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.

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.

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

Jane finds a job as a governess at Thornfield Hall. She teaches a young French girl named Adele, to whom she grows a fondness for. As a lover, Jane was a neophyte, but she soon found the love that she had always craved for. She fell in love with the master of the home, Mr. Rochester, and after some time, he asked her to marry him. “I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart, it leans to you. . . It was because I felt and knew this that I resolved to marry you” (Bronte 383). Jane soon finds out though, that Mr. Rochester already has a wife – Bertha Mason. Bertha has gone mad though, and is locked in a room for the safety of others. Jane is unable to accept Mr. Rochester’s marriage proposal because, as Rochester was a married man,

Bertha is also an outcast, although she has known an even sharper degree of oppression, so perhaps it is excusable that she cannot contain her result.  She has lost her family, wealth and sanity in the years since becoming Mr. Rochester’s wife.  Mr. Rochester acknowledges that Bertha’s madness is due in part to a hereditary disorder concealed from him by her family. However, his depiction of her as “loose and drunken” suggests that she is also an immoral woman, and ultimately at fault for her monstrous condition.  Confined for over ten years in the attic (in lieu of a dungeon) at Thornfield, Bertha has become physically deformed and utterly malevolent.  Her wild, unrestrained passion is juxtaposed with Jane’s surface of steady morality. Shut off from the full assertion of thought and feeling that should be her right, Bertha is the monstrous “double” that powerfully represents what Jane has subdued. Though Bertha must ultimately be destroyed (in a violent fire) to be freed from her tyrannical existence, and for Jane to be united with Mr. Rochester and eventually freed of her own monstrousness, Bertha’s presence in the novel serves as a potent expression for the underlying forces stirring within

Everyone thinks a child in an orphanage will find a kind family and live happily ever after, but not in this book. Jane Eyre is a book that illustrates the struggle and growth of a young orphan girl named Jane. Jane battles through the hardship in her education and captivity. This can be seen throughout the places Jane has stayed, such as Gateshead Hall, Lowood Institute and Thornfield. Throughout this story, Jane unlocks her emotions which sculpts her into a mature and independent woman.

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.

So, Rochester showed the brother (Richard), the priest, and Jane his wife. He explained how Bertha had lit his bed on fire, stabbed Richard, and destroyed Jane’s wedding veil's; she was more a monster than a wife. Heartbroken by learning of this marriage, Jane fled to her room where she stayed for hours upon hours. "Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent expectant woman - almost a bride - was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate (341)." When she finally emerged, Rochester tried to convince her to stay with him. “I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment (363).” This was not something she could not do; as Rochester said, "...[It would] strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect (346)..." The next morning, Jane left Thornfield Hall with some money and few possessions. She did not say goodbye to

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

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.

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.

At the start of the novel the reader knows nothing about Bertha mason. She does not make an appearance till Jane becomes aware of a “strong smell of burning” coming from Rochester’s room. Although she suspects Grace to have caused it, we find that Bertha set fire to his room. Rochester simply tries to hide her existence because he wants nobody to know of her, but cannot get rid of her. But that appears at this time it seems because Jane is troubled, a sort of doubling image. Bertha is constantly seen as an obstacle standing in Jane and Rochester's way of happiness and marriage. Her instability is illustrated in an extremely animalistic manner. Bertha threatens to “drain [Mason’s] heart”, similar to an evil being or vampire (ch.20). Again, Bertha is described as the polar opposite of Jane, as someone who acts out against typical norms and does how she pleases. So

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