Jane is alone and yet she craves comfort and company with others. She rethinks her dreams and settles for reality:
‘What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances. I want this because it is no use wanting anything any better. How do people get to a new place? They apply to friends I suppose. I have no friends.’
This makes the reader very aware of her circumstances. It makes the reader sorry that she can’t have exactly what she wants - freedom.
The love relationship with Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester was very unusual and unlikely to happen in the Victorian society because of the class differences that separated them both. A governess was only slightly higher than a servant in social class and so Jane could not be paired with someone so highly regarded as Mr. Rochester. Jane herself is even aware of these divisions:
‘and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean – wealth, cast, custom intervened with me and what I naturally inevitably loved.’
Even after Mr. Rochester has proposed to Jane, Mrs Fairfax tries to do her best to keep Jane away from him:
‘try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance; distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses’
Jane also finds herself at another disadvantage with her marriage Mr. Rochester: her lack of personal beauty. Blanche Ingrim, a wealthy lady of high class, comes to stay at Thornfield Hall and Jane constantly compares herself to her. Jane creates two pictures. One is of ‘Blanche an accomplished lady of rank’ and the other is a self-portrait, which Jane titles ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain’. Jane created them so that whenever she thought that Mr. Rochester liked her she could take the pictures and compare them. This would show her how inferior she would be to Blanche in Mr. Rochester’s eyes. Most guests staying at Thornfield believe that Mr. Rochester will marry Blanche and the importance of social status becomes very clear. Jane comments:
‘I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him’
Charlotte Bronte make’s Jane and Mr. Rochester’s mutual attraction and regard for each other convincing because Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester are quite alike despite their class difference. They are both lonely and because of this they both wish to be loved. Jane’s loveless childless makes her yearn to be loved and Mr. Rochester’s marriage for reasons of social equality lead him to mistresses because he ‘could not live alone’. Even then his mistress betrayed him leaving him alone once again. This puts him in a very vulnerable state of which he only desires love. Both Jane and Mr. Rochester behave differently from how Victorian society would expect someone from their class to behave. Jane is very opinionated; she is well educated, very passionate, wild, confident and brilliant. She isn’t afraid of Mr. Rochester and she is very independent, she can stand on her own two feet. Most women around that time leaned very heavily on men for almost everything; they weren’t allowed an opinion and were just designed to look pretty. Mr Rochester is also different from the norm, he shuns most other contact with others of his age apart from those who he deals with in business and he craves company from more intellectual women. Also, when they first met they both thought of the supernatural. She thought of a Gytrash and he thought of spirits of fairies. This makes them a good match because they are both looking for something a little out of the ordinary.
Jane Eyre shows her passion very early on in the novel. She shows she is brave and that she has a clear sense of what is right and wrong when she stands up to her Aunt Reed:
‘I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give it to your girl Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I’
Jane shows she has a lot of courage by defending herself in front of her Aunt. She is only ten at the time and this would take a very strong-minded person to hold her own opinion in front of someone who had oppressed her for many years.
‘I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if anyone asks me how I like you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.’
Jane has very Christian values she believes strictly in what is right and what is wrong. She haste liars and the truth is nearly always the right course of action for Jane:
‘How dare I? Because it is the truth.’
Jane’s first few months at Thornfield did not satisfy her. She was happy with her comfort and grateful for her place but she longed for more adventure or excitement.
‘I desired more of a practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.
It seems that whenever Jane thinks of a subject like this she is wondering or gazing out her window in wonder. Bronte uses this to show the reader that Jane is trying to reach for something or find something in the distance which is currently out of her reach. This is something that she dreams to find one day in the future.
Jane’s first meeting with Mr. Rochester is very intriguing and exciting. Their first meeting is given an air of supernatural mystery and charm. The scene is lit with pale silvering moonlight given off by the ‘rising moon!’ Jane is overcome briefly by images of ‘one form or Bessie’s Gytrash – a lion like creature with long hair and a huge head.’ Bronte creates an atmosphere of enchantment and uses the images of a spell:
‘The man, the human being, broke the spell at once’
The meeting is also exciting an unusual for Jane because it brings her into close contact with a man. This is something that rarely happened in Victorian society, outside marriage. Jane is very assertive and this awakens Mr. Rochester’s interest towards her:
‘I cannot think of leaving you at such a late hour... till I see you are fit to ride that horse’
Their first formal meeting was also very different and unconventional because Mr. Rochester is taking a personal interest in Jane Eyre and not just treating her as an employee. Gentlemen in Victorian society would usually look down on servants rather than care to discover a governess’s personality or value their opinions. However Jane’s refreshing honesty and quick wit makes Mr. Rochester more respectful of her. He always likes Jane’s company.
Jane rescues Mr. Rochester three times, in an interesting reversal of roles she comes to the aid of a gentleman in distress:
‘My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it... it was yet an active thing.’
The first time she saved him it had been after a small bodily injury. The second time she saved Mr. Rochester’s life by awakening him when his bed had caught on fire and helping to douse the flames. The third time she came to his aid was when something a mysterious had gone on and Mr. Mason, Mr. Rochester’s friend, had been seriously injured. Jane shows a lot of courage and loyalty towards him during this incident. She conquers her fear and sponges the blood of a man she doesn’t in the dark. Jane never asks any questions and keeps everything a secret. It shows she trusts Mr. Rochester a great deal and would not betray him. Jane is worried:
‘What crime this?... What mystery that broke out now in fire, and now in blood at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it?’
Charlotte Bronte uses these direct questions to show the reader Jane Eyre’s direct fear and bewilderment. This also lets the reader know just how loyal she is to Mr. Rochester because of how scared she is and yet she still sits there doing as he asked.
Another unconventional aspect of Jane and Mr. Rochester’s relationship is that Jane declares her love first. It is very believable to the audience because Jane declares her love in an emotional outburst. Mr. Rochester led Jane to believe that he was marrying Blanche Ingrim and that she must leave to see what she would say:
‘I have known you Mr. Rochester: It strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you forever. I see the necessity of departure: and it’s like looking on the necessity of death.’
She goes on to declare that they are equals:
‘I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh – it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if... we stood at gods feet, equal as we are.’
Mr. Rochester than declares that Jane is the only women for him and who can make him happy. This is convincing for the reader because Mr. Rochester accepts that they are equals and respects her for who she is. Even when he says he loves her he tells of her oddities:
‘You – you strange almost unearthly thing! – I love as my own flesh. You – poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are – I entreat to accept me as a husband.’
Readers want to believe this, so they are all the more accepting. We as an audience want Jane to be happy. She has had so much hardship and such little love that we feel she needs a happy ending. Everyone who would be put in her shoes would want the same thing as so we feel Jane is just as deserving as most of not more.
