I will not pretend that I don't have a bias against Mr. Edward Rochester. As a reader of Jane Eyre, I have seen his interactions with Jane. While he may claim to love her, he tests and teases her with a humor that is almost cruel. And his treatment of Antoinette is simply unacceptable. He courts her for his own gains. No matter how much his Father affected his decision to marry Antoinette, his actions are ultimately his own choices. When he persuades her to marry him through devious and questionable words of sweetness, he not only gives into his own selfish greed for money and familial approval, but he even ropes in an innocent girl.
I do sympathize with him, to a limited extent, given his position as the second and less favored son. He has to go out and seek his fortune the hard way. His success - thirty thousand pounds! - is a remarkable sum. But with great power comes great responsibility. Antoinette tried to back out of the wedding, claiming that she is "afraid of what may happen" (78). Yet Rochester kisses her fears away, churning out the mechanical phrases every woman probably wants to hear: "I'll trust you if you'll trust me... You will make me very unhappy if you send me away without telling me what I have done to displease you. I will go with a sad heart" (79). These hollow consolations have thrown any respect I might have for Rochester out the window. He is not afraid of exploiting his resources to get what he wants.
Yet I also realize that Antoinette is not entirely faultless either. She tried to poison him and she has an intense pride that rivals his. But what makes her character more bearable is her flaws: her struggle with self-identity, her loss of her mother, and her childlike naivety that can become an ugly ferocity. Her ups and downs are what defines her humanity and draws my sympathy. When Rochester tries to rename her "Bertha," he is trying to give himself, I think, an excuse - a reason for superiority if you will. He is clearly uncomfortable with the fact that she has purchased him - to think, a Creole has bought an Englishman, the outrage.
And Daniel "Cosway" provides him with the perfect yet dubious evidence. By allowing for his richer wife to be crazy, Rochester gives himself the justification for a moral and mental superiority. It now falls entirely on him to take care of her fortunes and who is a mad woman to challenge his judgements?
1 comment:
Is it possible that when Rochester utters these persuasive phrases while kissing Antoinette's tears away, he's not being deliberately deceptive or disingenuous? Does he maybe believe it when he says it? Or wish it was true? (I'm not making the call either way, and there is something inherently manipulative in the scene--he's literally trying to get her to do what he wishes, as he doesn't like the idea of returning to England "in the role of the rejected suitor.") But it is certainly possible to see this as a romantic moment, where they both for a second believe in the possibility of love. Of course he can't promise safety--and, as she says, he knows nothing about her. But love, or desire (or desire for love, can make people say crazy things, and they mean them at the time.
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