‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte: The Relationship of Jane and Rochester                                   

‘Jane Eyre’ is one of the most famous and well-read romantic novels in English literature. The novel has been translated into a number of different languages and adapted many times for dramatized productions.  ‘Jane Eyre’ focuses on several kinds of love: the love of sisterly relationships (Jane's love for Helen Burns and other civilians at Lowood, for Miss Temple, and for the Rivers family), compassionate love (Jane’s love for Miss Temple, and others who are downtrodden), and the type of love associated with family (Jane’s love for Diane, Mary, and St. John Rivers and those of ancestry relationship). However, the love of romantic relationships between the two main characters, Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, is the central theme of the novel. Charlotte Bronte makes use of a simple yet familiar story line:  boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl are reunited after some hardship and then live happily ever after.  ‘Jane Eyre’ contains most of the classic features of a love story. For example, real or imagined barriers between the two characters, misunderstandings, sudden separations, warm reunions, shared dangers, jealousy and helping or consoling the other character.

We first encounter this relationship between Jane and Rochester during their first dramatic meeting. She encounters him when he falls off his horse and she is required to give him assistance. Jane’s first impression of his face is that ‘He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow’. This may portray the dimness in his face awaiting to be enlightened by a woman which, in this case Jane. Further on in this chapter, unaware of who he is, on her return home, Jane is amazed to discover that the gentleman she assisted in the road was her employer, Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane’s future relationship with Rochester is most clearly set out in their first meeting. Although without any money, reserved and socially dependent, Jane is not afraid of this rather stern-looking man and approaches him confidently to offer her help. Rochester is given physical assistance and support, which is a target for the relationship that they may hold. In spite of her noticeable poor standard, Jane maintains the strength and power in relation to Rochester, the refusal to be dominated, which shows that she will always be the most dominating participant in this relationship.

Jane is initially intrigued by Mr. Rochester; the morning after his arrival, she asks Mrs. Fairfax for more information about him. She becomes increasingly attracted to him, even though he is often rude with her and, as some readers may believe, harsh. Rochester's romantic behaviour transforms Jane, as once she states, "So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred; my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength," showing to the readers that Rochester has healed Jane of her dreary life of which she was imprisoned and now released with strength to fight. She is finally in love with him that he displaces God and becomes "an idol" to her. Rochester brings a sense of life and of excitement to the inactive life Jane feels she is living at Thornfield. Also in helping him with his horse, she has a sense of usefulness and he brings her his experience of the world, which she does not know about because of her youth and her sheltered life. She says, "He liked to open to a mind unacquainted with the world, glimpses of its scenes and ways...and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, or followed him in thought through the new regions he disclosed."  In the case of Rochester, the characteristics of Jane which attracts her to him is her purity and innocence. As stated in the novel, Rochester has encountered many unfaithful relationships with women who only love him for his money and status. When Rochester looks at Jane, he sees the woman of his dreams, a woman who truly loves him not his wealth. Rochester is also attracted to Jane as he is able to talk to her as an equal without having to be respected and left alone due to his status.

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Jane and Rochester’s relationship develops from a small relationship such as employer and employee to a large and committed relationship such as love and eventually marriage. Although the reader only comes to acknowledgement of Jane’s love in Chapter 17 after Jane meets Rochester’s supposedly bride-to be, Miss Blanche Ingram. As readers recall, during their first meeting, Jane gave a vague and brief description of Rochester however, after a while of becoming acquainted with Rochester and falling in love with the unique man she had now met, Jane explains his appearance to be ‘colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and ...

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