Rochester's way of speaking

[kev67]

I suppose that's the point, but Mr Rochester has a very odd mode of speech. Here is an example from Volume I Chapter XV:

"You never felt jealousy did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience; your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you - and you may mark my words - you will come some day to a craggy pass of the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag-points, or lifted up and borne on by some master wave into a calmer current - as I am now."

For a start, he is very, very verbose. This is one paragraph out of two pages, mostly of Rochester speaking. The only words Jane Eyre manages to slip in are: "I will like it. I dare like it." Isn't this reversing the normal ratio? He is quite presumptious too: how does he know for sure Jane has not felt neither love nor envy. Mr Rochester has a very poetic turn of phrase that he rarely abandons. Here is another bit from Volume II Chapter VII:

"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead?"
"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world - from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow; you elf! - but I'd soon offer to take hold of a true ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! Truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent from me a whole month: and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"

I wonder how long it took Charlotte Bronte to write these speeches. Rochester is speaking them in real time. It must very challenging for actors who play his part. No other character in the book speaks anything like this.He also has a tendency to keep up a running commentary on what Jane is feeling. Jane is obviously not much of a poker player, because Rochester rarely feels unable to explain to her (and us) what she is thinking. It must be very flattering. It's not much surprise Jane falls for him when he shows this much interest in her.

[cacian]

I suppose that's the point, but Mr Rochester has a very odd mode of speech. Here is an example from Volume I Chapter XV:

"You never felt jealousy did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience; your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you - and you may mark my words - you will come some day to a craggy pass of the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag-points, or lifted up and borne on by some master wave into a calmer current - as I am now."

For a start, he is very, very verbose. This is one paragraph out of two pages, mostly of Rochester speaking. The only words Jane Eyre manages to slip in are: "I will like it. I dare like it." Isn't this reversing the normal ratio? He is quite presumptious too: how does he know for sure Jane has not felt neither love nor envy. Mr Rochester has a very poetic turn of phrase that he rarely abandons. Here is another bit from Volume II Chapter VII:

"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead?"
"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world - from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow; you elf! - but I'd soon offer to take hold of a true ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! Truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent from me a whole month: and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"

I wonder how long it took Charlotte Bronte to write these speeches. Rochester is speaking them in real time. It must very challenging for actors who play his part. No other character in the book speaks anything like this.He also has a tendency to keep up a running commentary on what Jane is feeling. Jane is obviously not much of a poker player, because Rochester rarely feels unable to explain to her (and us) what she is thinking. It must be very flattering. It's not much surprise Jane falls for him when he shows this much interest in her.

What I find really intriguing is the power in which the speech is laid out taking into account that Bronte is a woman writer and the amount of voice she has to a Rochester, a male character in unmissible allowing only a brief feeble sentence for Jane to say.
Words that I highlighted almost have a biblical tone to them.
It reminded me of the bible references to flood, dead people and soul and so on. It is like someone reciting a quote from Moses.
Words like elf and truant are quite demeening to tell someone whom you feel something for.
Then words
True Janian the way the names turns a reference reminds of references to religious sects when words such Jacobian/franciscan kind of thing.
and
True ignus fatuus which translates to ''foolish fire.''ghostly light seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached, drawing travellers from the safe paths
The word TRUE in both instances is quite intriguing because this mean the idea of something false?

[kiki1982]

Wow, I had never noticed that his speech was so special! You see, I can also miss things. Nah, I am not a native speaker and when I read this novel I was still learning big time. I am sure you'll see the difference if you consult my very first posts on this forum relating to this book. ;)

But you are right, Cacian, he uses a lot of bible references (Jane too, in her descriptions, actually). The thing is, though, that he uses them in a misleading way. Te most blatant one was the quote about judging from Matthew 5 at the point where they all see he was going to commit bigamy.

I have always seen him as a very cultured, highly intelligent and embittered person. He is a man I am in love with :blush:. He is a subtle character who, as Jane says, takes up all the room in the place he is. Indeed, he takes up the whole of his section, despite it being an autobiograpy of Jane Eyre and being only about a third of the novel. Like Jane, you can't stop thinking about him... You don't remember anyone distinctly from that novel apart from him.

Anyway, enough of the raptures...

He is indeed presumptious, domineering (possibly one of his attractions) and arrogant. He is damn sure he is right and everyone else is wrong.

The best adaptation of the novel, albeit a slightly 'forced' Rochester is 1982/3 with Timothy Dalton as Rochester (he was also a fantastic James Bond, acclaimed by critics as the most faithful to Ian Flemmings's novels). But my absolute favorite is Ciaran Hinds as Rochester. Very good actor who has played a large amount of roles, from secret agents to Julius Caesar in Rome. Although the 1996 film was seriously toned down, if they had given him a much better script, he would have outdone everyone in that performance. Particularly the scene when Jane returns from her aunt sums him up when he jumps from the wall. :lol: so boyish, but yet so manly, trying to impress the woman he loves. It was the most horrible kiss in film history, but he was arrogant, presumptious, but still likeable. He also played Rochester in a radio adaptation where the director of the film got his idea for the screen.

Anyway, the fact that Rochster is so multi-faceted is all the more surprising, as Brontë did not know many men from up close. Only her father and a few who proposed, including one she totally mistook :lol:. Poor man. She had no idea.

The flood thing is reminiscent of the bible symbolism of drowning, present in the psalms and of course the flood in the story of Noah and is Ark, but in JE in the drawings Rochester looks at, and also later when Jane thinks about the thwarted marriage.
Ironically, here, Rochester says that her soul is asleep and that she has never felt love nor envy. He does not realise that 'une grande passion' (great passion) is not equal to love. With Bertha, he thought he loved her where he was only in love (how do you want to love someone if you haven't spoken to her in private?), and I think he only realises after Jane has left that he did the same with Céline. It is as if he is too busy with the outer side of things to be able to appreciate what is under the surface. Passion is not a bad thing, as long as that is not the only thing. With him, that seems to be all.

So he somehow 'accuses' Jane of being asleep where he is actually calling the kettle black: there is a kind of sleeping beauty analogy going on with him. She is maybe a virgin and naïve, but she'll eventually be the prince who wakes him up, not the opposite. Sleeping Beauty is about puberty and becoming an adult in terms of feelings. he is a bit stuck where Jane is much much more more in tune with herself. She might be protesting her power to decide as a woman, but she is not a 'I want that, and I'll have it, whatever it costs'-woman. He is that kind of man.

He is also quite narcistic, as that already shows by his talking all the time (ooo, would that be the case with me too :p), but also by his weird covetous behaviour sometimes. As Byron's Manfred, he thinks himself able to possess a creature that is supernatural.

Cacian has pointed out that interesting duality between 'true' and the supernatural lights in bogs and marshes leading travellers off the right path. The latter is quite puzzling, because would he be aware of being on the wrong path? The full moon analogy (emotional conflict at every full moon) would certainly suggest that. having mistresses is still acceptable, trying to marry bigamously is not. In my mind he struggles with this thought: he knows that it is too late to tell her he is married, but now he is too much emotionally involved and doesn"t want to lose her. And he can't keep leading her on. As Jane says at the end, if she stayed there, there would be no way they could resist eac other.
There is a kind of conflict: he loves her (at least on his superficial level, his soul he is not aware of yet, he will know this when she has left, because grief will go much much deeper than with Céline; in my mind that's why he sends Adèle away: he has realised he did not love her mother, was only in love with her) and he doesn't want to lie and cheat but he is pushed to do so in spite of himself because he has sought love and acceptance for about 15 years (maybe even the whole of his life, narcists over-compensate for lack of love in their childhoods, although that is speculation). He is afraid she's going to go if he tells her or going to marry someone else (two thoughts he expresses: once when he tells her Adèle's story and the second time when SPOILER she has returned to him and he is an 'unable' blind man SPOILER OVER).

At the same time, though, he is quite devious in misrepresenting reality. That was Brontë's own idea: it was a kind of Aristotelian duality between reality (real) (the things as they are, which is impossible as a human to see as it is objective) and truth (what we perceive as reality, but which ultimately differs depending on the person who sees it as it is subjective). What Rochester presents as the truth, is his truth, and is different from the objective reality: he is married, he is not to marry again until his wife is dead. Whatever extenuating circumstances there are (and there are many on a human level!), are not an issue. He quite horribly misrepresents his situation as second son. It was a normal thing for him not to inherit and to marry well. He represents it as his father's avariciousness. I think that was a way for Brontë to expose him as a liar and make his character less trustworthy than he wishes to come across, maybe even make him a dangerous man. That also ties in with his false use of bible references.
In that, him comparing Jane to an ignis fatuus leading him off the straight and narrow so he will get lost is a symbol of what he is doing, but also suggests that he still considers himself on the straight and narrow, which he is not, i.e. misrepresenting the truth again, blaming her for what she doesn't want to do and she doesn't know she is doing. Just like he somehow projects his own inadequacy for choosing Bertha for his wife and his father for not giving him an inheritance. He accepted Bertha after all. He should have looked better and notified his father that she wasn't quite right in the head. His father was back in England and wasn't in Jamaica to judge by himself.

Wow, another long post. I am kind of turning into a Rochester.
It's not intended. ;)

[cacian]

Hi Kiki
Would you mind quoting the bit about what you have just said:


The thing is, though, that he uses them in a misleading way. Te most blatant one was the quote about judging from Matthew 5 at the point where they all see he was going to commit bigamy

I have missed this bit.


Another I must is that one must not forget that Rochester is still married and so by declaring his love to Jane he must have been committing some kind marriage breach.
At the time of when Jane Eyre was written marriage and unfaithfulness was something one would take very seriously.
Committing such offence must have been a kind of herecy.
In effect if viewed from a person from that era this book in effect would have been deemed quite contreversial right.
A bit like the Movie Jesus superstar which banned in America.
I am very surprised this book had received no sanctions.

[kev67]

What I find really intriguing is the power in which the speech is laid out taking into account that Bronte is a woman writer and the amount of voice she has to a Rochester, a male character in unmissible allowing only a brief feeble sentence for Jane to say.
Words that I highlighted almost have a biblical tone to them.
It reminded me of the bible references to flood, dead people and soul and so on. It is like someone reciting a quote from Moses.


There is something a bit sermon on the mount about them. Maybe Rochester's speech patterns are influenced by the King James bible. No doubt Rochester would have made a great preacher or orator if he had been inclined to.



Words like elf and truant are quite demeening to tell someone whom you feel something for.

I read them more as affectionate banter. Jane is very small, a bit like an elf. He sometimes called her his little friend. Maybe it is a bit demeaning, but she doesn't seem to mind.



Then words
True Janian the way the names turns a reference reminds of references to religious sects when words such Jacobian/franciscan kind of thing.

This rung a bell, but I don't think Janians are a Christian movement. There is Jainism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism), which is an Indian religion. Jain monks and nuns lead an austere life, living in poverty and taking great care not to kill any living thing, right down to not eating plant roots. An Indian colleague told me their initiation involved plucking out all the hairs on their body, which sounds very painful.

There is also Jansenism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansenism), which was a school of Catholic thought emphasizing original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. I think they had a pessimistic outlook on salvation, believing it was only possible for a few.

[kev67]

I've been trying to think who actually speaks like Mr Rochester. The best I could come up with were Mark Kermode, who's a British film critic, and Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. Mark Kermode can talk for England and is humourously intellectual with it. Boris Johnson is rarely at a loss for words neither and is not afraid to use a poetic reference or historical allusion. The author, Will Self, is another possibility, but on the main when I've heard him on the radio, he was reading from prepared scripts, so that's not a fair comparison. Neither Kermode nor Johnson are as poetic as Rochester though. Rochester is not side-splittingly funny, but he does have a gentle sense of humour and a sense of irony.

[kiki1982]

Oh, I see that's not Mattew 5 but Matthew 7: 1-3, that's how well I know my bible ;) :blush:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why begoldest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam in thine own eye?"

Or Luke 6:37 (fits better even)

"udge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive and ye shall be forgiven."

Sorry about the quoting. I don't normally like to do that, but it's easier, isn't it.

In short, at the time Rochester is exposed as a would-be bigamist, he quotes Matthew 7, but uses it in a way that is quite singular. The Sermon on the Mount sets out the ideals a Christian should follow. I am not a bible basher, but Jane certainly abides by this: at the point where he does something quite frankly unforgivable (he tries to lie to her for a whole year, Jane forgives him). He, on the other hand, blames his father for something he hasn't done, blames Bertha to a certain extent. Really blames everyone apart from himself, despite his own glaring responsibility. I agree he was sorely treated by old Mr Mason, but he could have said no, had he taken some time to take his decision. I think, secretly he knows that and hates himself for it.

As he tells the others, 'with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged,' he implies that they should allow him to commit not only adultery, but also bigamy, because they shouldn't judge. Indeed, they should think nothing of the double life he has led and Jane's trust he betrayed.
On a human level, his life is a difficult one: according to 19th century habits, as a bachelor, he 'misses' something (a wife to make him a home), but he has got it (he has a wife) only no home. That is sad. However, does that exhonerate him from the cheat he is? It was fine for a man to have a mistress, even illegitimate children. Even if he was married (provided he did it with discretion; a Huntingdon wasted his money, i.e. not a good husband because he overdid it), but committing bigamy is illegal.
The judging Brontë referred to was judging on a moral and personal level, but he takes it quite literally. Jane will not judge him morally, nor will maybe Mr Wood and Mr Briggs, but bigamy remains wrong.

Adultery was quite double, really. Mistresses were public secrets. As a man, having one wasn't really a problem and so would not have caused outrage (as Rochester certainly is a vastly rich man, although a little plucked). It did reflect badly on a man to have loads of mistresses (in combination with violence, this was the only ground for a woman to divorce apart from desertion). It wasn't totally wrong, morally, like now. Although, now it makes more sense, because if you don't like your wife anymore, you just divorce ad get another. earlier, you just couldn't.
For a woman, adultery, only once, was already a divorrceable offence, for obvious reasons (how will a man know his children are his if his wife cheats on him?), although during the Regency, things were slightly looser for women: as long as there was an heir, they could cheat with dicretion. As the 19th century wore on, adultery became less acceptable for women (and men to a certain extent), because of Victoria and Albert's influence on the middle classes the ideal family. The higher classes, though, did not pay much attention to this.

The novel did cause outrage because of Jane's passionate nature and apparently some people found Rochester and Jane's relationship quite peculiar because of the age difference. It wasn't done, apparently 40 and 20, whatever we think now. The same is expressed by Mrs Fairfax although maybe she was more worried by Bertha (whom she must have known about as she was in charge most of the time).

[cacian]

There is something a bit sermon on the mount about them. Maybe Rochester's speech patterns are influenced by the King James bible. No doubt Rochester would have made a great preacher or orator if he had been inclined to.


I read them more as affectionate banter. Jane is very small, a bit like an elf. He sometimes called her his little friend. Maybe it is a bit demeaning, but she doesn't seem to mind.


This rung a bell, but I don't think Janians are a Christian movement. There is Jainism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism), which is an Indian religion. Jain monks and nuns lead an austere life, living in poverty and taking great care not to kill any living thing, right down to not eating plant roots. An Indian colleague told me their initiation involved plucking out all the hairs on their body, which sounds very painful.

There is also Jansenism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansenism), which was a school of Catholic thought emphasizing original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. I think they had a pessimistic outlook on salvation, believing it was only possible for a few.

Kev this awesome information thank you so much.
About the Jainism it sounds rather obscene living what the heck is going on!!!:out:
I noticed your French signature and I am a French speaker I do not seem to recognise the source.
Do you mind telling me where it is from ?
It is interesting in the sense that it thinks women and cats are in the same category and so it made me think of the French saying:

if you follow him he runs away and if ignore him he follows you or something like that!
Si tu le suit il court et si tu cours il te suit
so I have this one as an appuie:
un de perdu dix de retrouves which is a reposte to the above saying.

[kev67]

Kev this awesome information thank you so much.
About the Jainism it sounds rather obscene living what the heck is going on!!!:out:
I noticed your French signature and I am a French speaker I do not seem to recognise the source.
Do you mind telling me where it is from ?
It is interesting in the sense that it thinks women and cats are in the same category and so it made me think of the French saying:

if you follow him he runs away and if ignore him he follows you or something like that!
Si tu le suit il court et si tu cours il te suit
so I have this one as an appuie:
un de perdu dix de retrouves which is a reposte to the above saying.

I wouldn't say Jainism was obscene. Some of them walk around naked while others only wear a robe, but they must be very devout people. TBH I was a little surprised Indian society apparently tolerates adults walking around naked because I always thought they were quite a conservative society, not to mention the British Raj or the Muslim Moguls when they ruled it. I suppose they could see what spiritual people they were.

Anyway, the quote is from Carmen by Prosper Mérimée, the story the opera was based on. I should put the source in the quote but I haven't got around to it yet. I thought it was the best line in the book. I went through a phase of trying to read French books.

[kiki1982]

Haha, I only saw those posts after I wrote my other one, which has now got a weird title :confused:


I've been trying to think who actually speaks like Mr Rochester. The best I could come up with were Mark Kermode, who's a British film critic, and Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. Mark Kermode can talk for England and is humourously intellectual with it. Boris Johnson is rarely at a loss for words neither and is not afraid to use a poetic reference or historical allusion. The author, Will Self, is another possibility, but on the main when I've heard him on the radio, he was reading from prepared scripts, so that's not a fair comparison. Neither Kermode nor Johnson are as poetic as Rochester though. Rochester is not side-splittingly funny, but he does have a gentle sense of humour and a sense of irony.

:lol: I am sure Boris would be really flattered (don't know the others you name)! But indeed, I have heard him say things that are quite intelligent and witty. No doubt, that is why he beat Ken Livingstone: he is much nicer to listen to. But that's politics. None of that ;).


There is something a bit sermon on the mount about them. Maybe Rochester's speech patterns are influenced by the King James bible. No doubt Rochester would have made a great preacher or orator if he had been inclined to.

Brontë knew a lot of it. At some point, I think just before they get married, Jane calls Rochester an 'Ahasuerus', referring to the king in the Book of Esther, I think, although there are three. There is also a reference to the tent of Achan, referring to the story of Joshua (I think). It's pretty amazing what obscure things she knew and used reeadily.


I read them more as affectionate banter. Jane is very small, a bit like an elf. He sometimes called her his little friend. Maybe it is a bit demeaning, but she doesn't seem to mind.[QUOTE]

No she doesn't seem to mind... I wonder though whether the sheer amount of Byron the Brontë siblings read has to do with this. Byron seems to have been, maybe not obsessed, but at least interested in mastering ghosts and spirits, dealings with the devil, etc. Not only in a Gothic way (ooo, the occult, how mesmerising!), but also in a kind of weird domineering way. Cain flies off with the devil and Manfred practically tells the devil to do what he says. That's different to Goethe's Faust where it is, 'Please, please, let this girl fall in love with me' or whatever.
This to say that I wonder whether Rochester has this creepy way of making Jane supernatural because he wishes to be supernatural as well. Very weird and unsettling. He loses that weird domineering streak later.

[QUOTE=kev67;1159530]This rung a bell, but I don't think Janians are a Christian movement. There is Jainism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism), which is an Indian religion. Jain monks and nuns lead an austere life, living in poverty and taking great care not to kill any living thing, right down to not eating plant roots. An Indian colleague told me their initiation involved plucking out all the hairs on their body, which sounds very painful.

There is also Jansenism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansenism), which was a school of Catholic thought emphasizing original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. I think they had a pessimistic outlook on salvation, believing it was only possible for a few.

Hmmm, that would be interesting. Could be that she played with this Indian thing. The elements of Earth, Water, Fire and Air she also played with (the most obvious example being Jane's surname as in air and the river Ayr). She definitely knew more than we think.

I knew about Jansenism. Pretty pessimistic stuff indeed. I was taught in the tower where Jansenius (the guy who thought about it) lived. It was part of the premises of my school. You can go and see it once a year, although it's no more than a shell, really. His thoughts, though, were quite similar to some protestant beliefs of salvation and redemption. Is it the Calvinists who believe that one is doomed and that one has to work to attain and earn salvation?

[kev67]

Come to think of it, I can imagine Boris Johnson saying those words in those passages I copied. I can't really imagine Mark Kermode saying them. I just don't imagine Rochester being much like Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson often comes across as a buffoon, certainly not a tortured soul. OTOH, Rochester isn't always averse to a bit of buffoonery, such as when he dressed up as a gypsy to tell all the young women their fortunes.I wonder if Rochester had a plummy voice like Boris. He is not normally portrayed that way, but maybe that is the way Charlotte Brontë imagined him. Being upper class, he would have had some sort of posh accent.

That makes me wonder which accent Jane Eyre would have spoken in. She's northern, but she's middle class. Literature tends to record working class speech patterns more phonetically than middle class accents, so it is more difficult to work out what the middle class characters sounded like. Hardy did a very good job at portraying all his characters' speech classes in Tess. I had no trouble imagining what they sounded like. Charlotte Brontë does not seem to be quite so good at it. In the chapter I have just read a shop keeper responds in a regional accent, but I can't work out which it is.

[kiki1982]

Come to think of it, I can imagine Boris Johnson saying those words in those passages I copied. I can't really imagine Mark Kermode saying them. I just don't imagine Rochester being much like Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson often comes across as a buffoon, certainly not a tortured soul. OTOH, Rochester isn't always averse to a bit of buffoonery, such as when he dressed up as a gypsy to tell all the young women their fortunes.I wonder if Rochester had a plummy voice like Boris. He is not normally portrayed that way, but maybe that is the way Charlotte Brontë imagined him. Being upper class, he would have had some sort of posh accent.

That makes me wonder which accent Jane Eyre would have spoken in. She's northern, but she's middle class. Literature tends to record working class speech patterns more phonetically than middle class accents, so it is more difficult to work out what the middle class characters sounded like. Hardy did a very good job at portraying all his characters' speech classes in Tess. I had no trouble imagining what they sounded like. Charlotte Brontë does not seem to be quite so good at it. In the chapter I have just read a shop keeper responds in a regional accent, but I can't work out which it is.

It's difficult to say what accents anyone would have had, apart from the servants: John and Mary definitely speak Yorkshire dialect as is evident at the very end, Sophie is French-speaking so she speaks with a French accent and Adèle too.

What Jane and Rochester would have spoken is the question.

I just read up on this and found out the following:

The problem with this is that RP (Received Pronunciation, the Ultra-version being the one you call 'plummy') did emerge in the 18th-19th century as the preferable way of pronouncing English. It was an accent derived from the educated classes in London. Professor David Crystal on the BBC website says that by the 1830s, writers were advising people to speak like that. In 1869 a guide wrote that the best accent was taught at Eton and Oxford. From the end of the 18th century, more and more pronunciation guides cropped up, due to social mobility because of the Industrial Revolution, trade and the military.

The ideal place to teach an accent would be school. Public schools were there, but were not always used in the Regency. They were a middle class product to brace their sons for a profession. Te upper classes did not need them, as they would never work (that was beneath them). As time wore on, though, they did start to use them. That's obviously where the accent is beaten into you (apparently there is a novel by Rudyard Kipling that has issues relating to this). And at uni (which Rochester does refer to).
Someone somewhere on a blog said something interesting in this respect: children were brought up, not by their parents who, one could assume, were better educated, but by servants. A governess could maybe have done something about her accent and toned it down a little to be more employable, but the nursery maid was usually a young girl and rich parents did not always spend lots of time with their children. So even if they had spoken in a posh accent, they would not have taught their children much of it.
The problem is that Rochester comes from the Regency, a time when RP was not established yet. In fact, as the Thornfield section plays in around 1836, minus 15 years: in 1821 Rochester had fnished uni (probably either Oxford or Cambridge), even if he wrote standard English, he would probably have spoken with some sort of accent, unless he spent some considerable time at a public school, which he doesn't mention anything about. Although I somehow don't think he comes across as a public school boy (different to Mr Huntingdon from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). I don't know why, he seems to be less engrossed by meaningless things. Mathematics wasn't really top of the list. I just wonder about that, certainly as he practically introduces himself with arithmetic.

I think Jane must practically have spoken with a Yorkshire accent for the simple reason that she grew up until ten years of age amongst servants and then moved to a school surrounded by other people speaking in accents (mainly her peers, but most liably also her teachers, this section also plays during the Regency in around 1826). No doubt she would probably have had less of a thick accent than normal servants like parlour maids or so, but still you would have heard she was from up north. In most adaptations she also speaks like that, together with Mrs Fairfax.

The Brontë siblings themselves maybe had less of a thick accent (unlike Austen who allegedly had a thick South-Western accent with a burr) because their father, as a clergyman I believe would have received elocution lessons (you can't send clergymen somewhere where they are not understood by their congregation). Although I don't know how much he did about this, despite that he was pretty much involved in their education.

[mona amon]

Words that I highlighted almost have a biblical tone to them. - Cacian

The whole book, starting from the chapter where Jane first meets Brocklehurst, is full of biblical allusions or direct quotes. Indeed the book ends with a quote that's practically the last line in the Bible. The most ironic bible reference is Brocklehurst trying to justify starving the kids with this misquote,"If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye." There's no such line in the New Testament, but it sure sounds as if it's from there. :D. Looks as if she was thoroughly familiar with the whole of the King James version.


About the Jainism it sounds rather obscene living what the heck is going on!!! :out: - Cacian

LOL. Every religion has some practitioners who will go to ridiculous extremes, but I've seen lots of people of the Jain religion and known a few, and they're just like anybody else, LOL. Some monks of the Digambra sect do not wear clothes, or have any other posessions, so I guess if you visit Jain temples in certain places you'll have to be prepared for that.


"A true Janian reply!"

Rochester has merely made an adjective out of Jane's name, and it has nothing to do with religion.

eg. Victoria --> Victorian

Jane --> Janian


True ignus fatuus which translates to ''foolish fire.''ghostly light seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached, drawing travellers from the safe paths
The word TRUE in both instances is quite intriguing because this mean the idea of something false? - Cacian

Just for the record, it is 'blue ignis fatuus' not 'true ignis fatuus'. :p


Anyway, the fact that Rochster is so multi-faceted is all the more surprising, as Brontë did not know many men from up close. Only her father and a few who proposed, including one she totally mistook . Poor man. She had no idea. - Kiki

I think there were usually quite a few curates and other visitors coming to tea in the parsonage (one of whom proposed to Charlotte after just one evening of joking and chatting with her!), then there were the brothers of her schoolfriends Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey, one of whom proposed to her, and let's not forget her own brother Branwell, whom she was very close to, and her Belgian professor Monsieur Heger whom she fell in love with.

On the whole, I think she had as many opportunities to observe men as anyone, but I agree she does a good job of it. Her male characters are all very convincing.


I read them more as affectionate banter. - Kev

Me too. Love the way he calls her a fairy, elf, witch, sorceress etc. And Janet! :ladysman:

[kiki1982]

I think there were usually quite a few curates and other visitors coming to tea in the parsonage (one of whom proposed to Charlotte after just one evening of joking and chatting with her!), then there were the brothers of her schoolfriends Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey, one of whom proposed to her, and let's not forget her own brother Branwell, whom she was very close to, and her Belgian professor Monsieur Heger whom she fell in love with.

On the whole, I think she had as many opportunities to observe men as anyone, but I agree she does a good job of it. Her male characters are all very convincing.

I know of her lovers (or at least those who fancied her), but the point I tried to make is that she didn't have contact with men like women today. Things were pretty segregated and she can't have seen too many men trying to impress the other sex, although maybe at local dos? Good observer anyway.

Indeed, the guy who proposed to her after one afternoon! She must have charmed the pants off him!

Still, if it is 'blue ignis fatuus', my thing wit true and real doesn't stretch very far, does it, in that respect at least. :p

[kelby_lake]

Rochester is your typical sarky raging virile patriarchal figure. No wonder Jane masochistically represses her feelings for him for a long time and is attracted to him despite him being married to Bertha. He's very witty- like he should be in a play.

[mona amon]

Rochester is your typical sarky raging virile patriarchal figure...[cut]...He's very witty- like he should be in a play.

And in Jane he meets his match! Indeed, their verbal fencing is one of the joys of the book.