As I have said before (which you might not have seen/read), following research about the King Lear allusion (Off ye lendings), I concluded there is a transformation in Rochester. In contradiction to how you think I interpret Rochester, and more to the point how I get to have the opinion I have of him, I do not use any moral modern grounds, far less a theological interpretation where I doubt that it wasn’t intended by the writer. My demonic interpretation of Rochester and connected with that on another level his narcissism, is based on the coming-together of allusions and images. Transformation in romantic literature is not rare. You can find it in Austen, Brontë, Dumas, Hugo and more writers I can’t remember off the top of my head. What you fail to see is that Rochester after Jane has left has realised that he was in the wrong. The fact that he rescues his servants is a normal thing, but that he risks his life for Bertha is a totally different thing on the whole and is brought on by Jane and the realisation of the real extent of love. Suddenly he has realised that the absence of Jane/love in his life makes him wretched and not the presence of Bertha (before you get to see what I wrote about Céline and Rochester’s relationship, I think he thought he loved her, but realises when Jane leaves (again) that that was not at all true). He has suddenly realised that when one doesn’t have people around and when one is/feels alone in the world that one is really wretched. He realised after Jane left that when he went up in Bertha’s room with Jane, Briggs, Wood and Mason, denouncing Bertha as his wife, he really reduced her to nothing: away from family at the other side of the world, her husband who doesn’t even materially care for her let alone will try to seek some treatment. By reducing her to nothing, in a way he also reduced himself to half a human being, because a human being who can’t have pity is not a human being, but is reduced to beast. Beasts, in most cases, do not care about weak ones in their groups because they are too busy surviving to help them. We as humans have evolved to a state where we can afford to care for a weak one, whether unemployed, ill or handicapped. When Rochester realises what he was during the month after Jane’s leaving, he decides to finally do something for Bertha as Thornfield burns down. Although he can’t help her as such any more because 15 years have gone over it already, he doesn’t leave her on the roof, hoping she dies in the fire (which he could do after all).
Bertha is indeed characterised as violently insane and Charlotte was criticised for it! She writes in a letter to W.S. Williams on the 4th of January 1848: ‘It is true that profound pity ought to be the only sentiment elicited by the view of such degradation, and equally true is it that I have not sufficiently dwelt on that feeling: I have erred in making horror too predominant. Mrs. Rochester, indeed, lived a sinful life before she was insane, but sin is itself a species of insanity—the truly good behold and compassionate it as such.’ So, according to Charlotte herself, Rochester should have been compassionate and should have had pity… Not only that, but his sinful life she saw also as a type of insanity. Of course… Jane even said ‘I pity you, I honestly pity you’. That is what the people at the Retreat of York were doing, and that world was far from confining someone for 15 years (!) in the same place, with no natural light and little physical care… Whatever you may say about mixing the vies of the author with the views of his/her characters, there seems to be a definite parallel between Jane and Charlotte here. Jane calls Bertha ‘an unfortunate lady’ and pities Rochester. When Charlotte then writes that ‘the truly good behold and compassionate it as such’, where does the horror she made predominant (in her own words) refer to?
Of course the Quaker-approach was a little too modern and humane for the time, but we need to acknowledge that 1792 (actually 1796) was about 50 years prior to Jane Eyre. In those 50 years public opinion had changed from the lunatic punished by God to the unfortunate mentally ill person. It has been argued that Rochester is old-fashioned in his view and consequently subjects Bertha to the old method of restraint and locking up. During the 1830s-1860s there was an optimism in the management of lunatics in even county-asylums. There were commissions who were to visit asylums in order to modify the laws that had already been in place since 1774, and were updated in 1828. The commissioners were to report on things concerning: ‘whether there has been adopted either in whole or in part, any system of non-coercion, and if so the particulars of such system, and by what means practised, and whether by medical treatment or otherwise, and what has been the result thereof’, ‘the classification or non-classification of patients, the number of attendants in each class, and, so far as practicable, the proportionate number of attendants before and since the adoption of non-coercion, if such system shall have been adopted’, the occupations and amusements of the patients ... and whether the same be in-door or out-door ... and the effect ... indoor and out-door respectively, on the condition, as well mental as bodily of the patients’, ‘the condition, as well mental as bodily, of the pauper patients (if any), when first received ... and whether the condition has been such as to prevent or impeded the ultimate recovery, either mental or bodily, of such patients, and also as to the dietary of the pauper patients’. All asylums were also supposed to have religious guidance in an attempt to bring the lunatics on the right path again. Not only the presence of a commission in that respect holds proof of Bedlam not being the standard for lunatic care, but also Parry-Jones states about Mary Lamb (a well-known 18th century case in this field): ‘The house in Islington, London, at which ... Mary was confined in 1796, after she had murdered her mother, contained accommodation at about £50 per annum, which was less expensive than that occupied by Mary, who had a room and a servant to herself’ and a little further ‘Charles Lamb's description of the care and affection ... Mary received at an Islington madhouse, also supports the view that humane treatment was practised in some eighteenth-century madhouses.’ The £50 per annum taken in the year 1796, converted to 1840 (if we were to apply that to Rochester’s and Jane Eyre’s period of time) makes £55 (indexed). Bertha could have had (even in the 18th century!) affection, care, a room for herself and a servant to herself, for a quarter of the money Rochester was prepared to pay Grace Poole. To add to this, the newspaper The Lancet reported in 1845 (two years prior to the publication of Jane Eyre) that there was no-one physically restrained in Bedlam hospital. There are records from ex-inmates of Bedlam that show that there was dramatic change in managing patients. Where in 1804 it was normal to be chained, in 1817 this was far less the case. And although it is mentioned that there were people on the ground flour sleeping on straw, this was not normal in the rest of the hospital and was only for people who couldn’t keep themselves clean. It was no punishment, although the keepers were criticised by some inmates for punishing them that way. (Metcalf). It is clear to me that Bedlam was not the standard in lunatic care, however people seem to think it was; not least because it was a state institution, with paupers into the bargain. State institutions did not have the same meaning as they have now. Bedlam Hospital was merely controlled by the City of London, but as there were no laws to protect the mad or poor, there were no rules they had to abide by, let alone be the example to the others. More the opposite, I’d say. I would call it, controlled by the City of London, in a privatised way. Bedlam was heavily criticised on its first visit by the commission and improved a little, but there are far better examples to look at. Even in the year 1700, David Irish in Guildford advertised ‘good fires, meat, and drink, with good attendance, and all necessaries far beyond what is allowed at Bedlam’. This about 100 years prior to the period Bertha would have been confined! Then already Bedlam was criticised. If Mary Lamb dreaded having to go to Bedlam Hopsital, what does that tell you? That there was no better? Apparently yes, because she was confined in a pretty good place, as it seems to me. From Bethlem Hospital’s own website: ‘Restraint of patients had been used sparingly at Bethlem in the 1840s and was abandoned in the 1850s. There was more emphasis on the surroundings and opportunities for work and leisure as a means of facilitating recovery. The women, where possible, helped around the house making beds, washing up, cleaning, sewing and working in the laundry,’ and ‘those who had not recovered at the end of a twelve-month period were generally discharged.’ Admittedly, it seems that that is so, but after that on their website they continue: ‘from the 1730s, however’. That suggests (and is probably the case) that this was the case before the 1730s and consequently doesn’t at all apply to the time Charlotte wrote her book. The cases and practices you quote are relative to the 18th century and not at all to the modernisation of the 19th century where compassion was everything. If Rochester allowed Grace Poole not to care for her at all, not to even try, if he confined her in a windowless room (who wouldn’t go mad?), if he himself restrained her, then he at least had a mere 18th century pauper view and was not at all caring and compassionate, like Mary Lamb’s brother was to his sister. We also need to mention that in 1815 Bethlem Hospital moved for a second time and that the quotes you make are taken in a time where the hospital was overcrowded and part of it inhabitable. Outdated, so to say. So, again, Rochester at least subjects Bertha to an older view and not at all a modern compassionate one. If Charlotte herself was criticised for the portrayal of Bertha as raving and violently insane, and admits to horror being its cause, then there can be no doubt as to the justification of Rochester’s way of dealing with it, given the circumstantial evidence. If there is any horror that needed to be predominant in that part of the novel, given the context of Bertha’s appearance, I thoroughly believe that it should be sought in Rochester’s management of his wife rather than in Bertha’s violent conduct. Only the description Jane gives of Bertha’s room, Grace’s alcoholism prior to that scene (given that keepers were more criticised than physicians), Grace’s assertion ‘ah, sir, she sees you!’ (as if there is danger involved when Bertha sees Rochester) and the shock of Rochester’s lying, are clear indications that Rochester is severely criticised and that the scene is not merely a display of ‘[the] unfortunate lady’. If Charlotte found pity and compassion only appropriate, why did she write that in her book? At least not to give a realistic account of a mad person. This is a speculation Jean Rhys made as well, but I didn’t read that book, and there is on this forum what I only think in principle about it. What I do know for certain is that Bethlem was a bad example rather than a standard and that Charlotte knew about lunatics and their ways. She knew that pity was rather in place, so I can’t see what Charlotte tried to do when she made Bertha violent in a windowless room. Probably the same as Shakespeare who made King Lear lament his lot for ever and ever, but started his play with pledges of love in exchange for a dowry…
The demonic nature of Rochester can be argued on the basis of a number of things and consequently that judgment is not a subjective one, far less a theological one, but one embedded in literary allusions and imagery. How does one account for his boudoir of ‘ice and snow’, for his black horse, for his Manfredian tendencies (his insistence that Jane is a fairy and being equal (or even superior to her)? If Rochester has tendencies of a Byronic hero (and I say tendencies, because he has not all qualities although most readers consider him a Byronic hero) then he is in a certain sense demonic. If Rochester does not transform from wretched human being into amiable person, the iconic man he becomes doesn’t come to his right heights and he would never have ended up in the big list of great characters had he not transformed. Rochester becomes lovable in a strange way, but it doesn’t imply that he is lovable from the start. All literary allusions point that way, but he puts up a different façade, as King Lear.
The word ‘noble’ is not from my usage alone. If you look on the website, you find others that have used it before me, but if you want a discussion on it, no problem.
Indeed, what you quote is what it implies: people of high birth should be generous, do good, and so hold up their honour as their position requires. Let’s call it ‘honourable’ behaviour.
The example you state of the Battle of Agincourt is a good one as to what the word ‘noble’ (both in French and English) can mean, but should not do. The image you have of the battle seems to be quite Shakespearian, but there is a truth that Shakespeare also knew, but left out of the play. When Henry V got barred from Calais he could not have known to be so lucky, but the weather also contributed a lot to that battle. It rained namely a whole night! On a freshly ploughed field, that is bad news for heavily armed men… On the morning the battle would begin, the French conétable goes to inspect the battlefield and senses that the ground is soaked so much that his horse can barely move because it sinks into the mud knee-deep. Vainly he tries to reason with the French nobility to postpone the battle. Partly because they didn’t want to be seen as cowards by each other (with a history of rivalry and the assassination of the Duke of Orléans and a civil war), but also because of the English ‘canaille à pied nu’ (English ‘Rabble with bare feet’) they didn’t want to be considered as scared of. Of course, any reason went out the window and the French went on with the battle taking their normal positions: foot-soldiers and behind them the cavalry and somewhere in between ‘because they were not needed’, the archers and some crossbowmen. Henry marched towards them in a half-circle with the flanks slightly more advanced than the centre and, as the French army was 5 (?) times as big, they were piled up in this half-circle 20 rows thick because of the lack of space. To add to the problems was the fact that crossbows have a shorter range than longbows, so the crossbows didn’t really serve a very great deal because they couldn’t reach the English at first. When the cavalry charged, let through by the infantry and the crossbowmen, they fell off their horses because they couldn’t walk, because the horses got shot by the arrows or because they stumbled over the others. By the time the infantry could charge, most of the knights were lying on their backs, in the mud, unable to get up because of the weighty armour, as ‘silver beetles’. The infantry had to climb piles of horses, bodies etc. to get to the battle. They pushed and pushed and because of that the situation became worse and more people died. In the meantime Henry V had seen that some French were looting the baggage train that was only lightly guarded because of his lack of men and he had to send soldiers to defend it, however his crown in the end was reported missing. As they were now occupied on two fronts, the English started to loose and they were pushed towards their own row of stakes they constructed in order to defend themselves against the cavalry (if there was any left). According to chivalry, they had taken the ‘silver beetles’ (read the French nobility, almost entirely) prisoner, and hadn’t killed them, on the contrary guarded them because they represented ransom. But… Henry V had now a decision to make: either he kept the prisoners guarded and waited until their compatriots came to free them and they could rearm, or… he took the guard away so they could fight (because they were just the men he needed). Yet, he could not let the prisoners run… He did something that went against chivalry altogether: he ordered the prisoners to be killed. The English nobles were against it, but failing them, he asked his archers to do so. As they were criminals, and only escaped the gallows because of enlisting in Henry’s army, they didn’t weary of killing people. When the prisoners were killed, the English won the battle, because of a judgment totally against history, yet a brilliant move. That is why all of the French nobility was killed, or let’s say slaughtered. (Durschmied, Wikipedia)
It was not the longbows of the English that made their victory, it was the conceit of the French nobility amongst themselves and their failure to hear reason of someone who inspected the battlefield (because of their own pride). It was the English king who took a decision that was very un-noble that handed him the victory. If the French had fought on a good day on a better battlefield, they would have won, alone because of their sheer number. The French nobility had maybe at home the name to be generous and kind, but not so on the battlefield where they were proud and conceited. It was not at all fighting for a lost cause at that moment, far more was it a lost cause when the English in 1453 faced a French army with artillery rather than longbows. Had king Henry V preferred war-etiquette over victory, he had lost the battle, but instead he decided, willingly, to do something despicable; something that would forever brand the word ‘anglais’ in French history as something bad, disgusting or inferior. The battle of Agincourt/the Hundred Years War started a new era in warfare as it marked the transition from a feudal army with heavy cavalry and occasional foot-soldiers to a professional enlisted army with specialised artillery. That period also marked the transition from the nobility with political power onto themselves (which paralysed the whole economy) to a more centralised state-construction (as the English already had it at the time of Agincourt).
Thus, the word ‘noble’ in its entirety gained another meaning from when it was first established. From a feudal position of power and self-decision, it became a more charitable and philosophical position When the chivalric code was first established around the 11th century (although across Europe the time differs a little) a knight was supposed to pursue the good and the truth, be generous, be courteous and serve. But this goes further than one might suppose. The underlying belief is a profound belief in Love, but Love as an ultimate goal and something that is owed by the knight to all. Pursuing the truth is not only looking for it, but presenting it to others. It is serving one’s neighbours as it is an act of love to present the good and the truth. A knight or nobleman has the duty to pursue truth in itself and to represent the reality as best he can. It is for a common goal. It is a service to his fellow man. Lying is misrepresenting the truth and comes out of a desire of personal gain. A knight has the duty to serve others and so does not lie. The kindness and generosity a knight should pursue are not only kindness and generosity in their material meaning, but also in their spiritual meaning as they spiritually mean to allow others to have their beliefs. Being as generous as that is an act of love as it displays one’s strength of character. Open-mindedness is absolute. Foremost, a nobleman should protect the weak. All weak. Because, again, it is an act of love, truth and good. It is giving the weak a stronger voice, because of the noble’s strength and power. A knight should use his strength and power to serve, as that is what the word ‘knight’ means. If he is not reverend and if he does not serve his fellow man, he denies him love and he reduces him to a possession. If we now consider Rochester’s appearance again… He lies to Jane and the rest of the world about having a wife, but when she challenges his views, he is not man enough to see the sense of hers. Thus he misrepresents the truth, and is not spiritually generous enough to consider Jane’s opinion. He even calls it unreasonable, or that is what he implies when he asks Jane to hear reason. The main problem for me is that he does not seem to want to do anything good for Bertha. If Rochester were striving for the truth and striving to protect the weak, he would not have been indifferent as to how Grace Poole took care of his wife, whether infirm or not. However, in the end he does see sense, and not least through a good example of knighthood. Jane, in her approach to life, is not only stoic but also chivalric in its original meaning: she is spiritually generous to Rochester, tries to understand his view and pities him, but prays for him to be helped. She has presented the reality to him, she has tried to ‘serve’ him as it were. Instead of staying there (which would be a comfortable solution) she puts her career and her name on the line to flee Thornfield without reference, but for her eternal soul and his.
As portrayed in Darcy in Pride & Prejudice, generosity and kindness can go hand-in-hand with pride and conceit in practice. Darcy says that Elizabeth shocked him when she said ‘had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner’ and that because of that he started to think how he was in public, which was a big difference with how he acted with his sister and servants. And it is also like that with Rochester: to Mrs Fairfax he may be a ‘liberal landlord’, but it does not at all imply that he has to be kind to everyone. You cannot possibly find what he did to Jane very kind…
If this is the case, then Rochester caring for his servants, rescuing them from the fire, settling an annuity on their life does not at all imply that he was kind to Bertha. More on the contrary in fact: because of his conceit he clearly walks towards his downfall blindly (if you absolutely want to make a parallel with Agincourt in general). Besides, the place in the story you are quoting from is a place where he has already started to become another man; where he already started to grieve Jane; where he for the first time in my opinion shows any kindness towards Bertha; where he for the first time calls her by her name, and not in a context of estrangement (‘Bertha Mason is mad’) or with a derogatory name (‘fearful hag’). At the time Thornfield burns, he has already been thinking about himself and his conduct. As I stated above, he has realised, by then, what he did to Bertha: he hated her, because she was inferior. According to chivalry, he reduced her to a mere possession and used his power to control and not to serve; he used his power not to give her a voice, but to silence her; in short he indeed didn’t love her, but hated her. He didn’t strive for the good and the truth, he didn’t strive to represent the truth to the best of his ability when he lied to Jane about being a bachelor. He was maybe generous to Jane in the material sense, but not in the real sense of open-mindedness and respect, forcing her into a bigamous marriage she wasn’t even able to choose. Thus, even in its chivalric meaning, Rochester is far from noble. When he then, at the end of his monologue, says: ‘but Jane will give me her love. Yes, nobly, generously.’ He hopes for her chivalric tendencies to come to the surface, but even a true knight couldn’t comply with his wishes because they are not good, not of service to anyone. The only thing they are is selfish and self-centred literally: only of service to him. A knight needs to serve the common good and not the gain of one person only because it is bound to harm others. Jane, as the knight, does what she can to present the reality and the good before him: she tells him he has a wife living, she tells him that Bertha is unfortunate, she listens to him, comforts him and directs him to God for guidance and solace, but that is not what he wants. Thus, for her, there is nothing more to do than go to stop him wanting her.
The reason Rochester wants Jane to hear is his reason only, not the reason of the common law, not the reason of the church, not the reason of Jane, not the reason of morality. Although we can understand why he sees things like that, we cannot say that his views are normal. Perhaps it is only the bad treatment of his wife that makes it so bad. If Bertha had not been locked up in secret, but in a nice place we could make excuses, but as stated above, Rochester comes across as a lamenting King Lear who has himself to blame for what happens to him; who doesn’t understand unconditional love, but requires proof; whose ‘love’ is thrown back in his face by people who he (naively) thought loved him. King Lear does not understand why his daughters deny him his 100 people strong court they have to support financially and thus curses them. Yet, his two daughters, Goneril and Regan, are the same ones that ‘proved’ their ‘love’ to their father the way he wanted it. The only one who refused, Cordelia, is the one who will eventually come to die because of her unconditional love for her father. As King Lear Rochester does not understand unconditional love and wants proof of it there and then. Not only that but he consequently cannot give it. Love, in the chivalric meaning is a love that both is an ultimate goal and something that induces entire devotion. King Lear expects material devotion from his daughters, but is prepared to exhaust it to the brink without any devotion from his side. When his devoted knight challenges him over his refusal of Cordelia’s dowry, he banishes him. Yet, that man was a true devoted servant, because he presented the truth and the good before Lear, who refused and dismissed it. When the nobleman gets dishonoured and banished he will impose himself in disguise so that his king will not come to any harm. That is true devotion for you: unconditional, serving, protecting and for the common good, regardless of what the past is/was or what the weak have contributed to their weak situation. Rochester asks for devotion from Jane with a pledge of fidelity, but is unable to supply her with entire devotion beyond the material. It is only when he is not able to supply her with anything material because of his physical state, that he can finally supply her with his heart. When Jane says that she loves him more than in his proud independence, she indeed intimates devotion from his side as a knight to his lady: blind devotion (literally), a devotion that is unconditional, that will protect, that is generous, that is just devotion for the sake of devotion. Without gain, without actual goal, without interest. In short chivalric Love: Good, Truth and Servitude. A Love with a capital L.
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). But I am glad I make sense 
.