To who? Jane?
To who? Jane?
So with the courage of a clown, or a cur, or a kite jerkin tight at it's tether
Bertha.
Haha, oh... fair enough.
So with the courage of a clown, or a cur, or a kite jerkin tight at it's tether
I don't think Charlotte intentended us to conclude he was a deluded liar and cheat, but rather a basically good man who had succumbed to adverse circumstances and wandered off from the straight and narrow, but is redeemed in the end. Corny as it all is, Charlotte carries it off with aplomb, and what is more appealing than a redeemed character? I do not think it is the attractiveness of evil that's at play in Rochester's case, but the attractiveness of redemption. Heathcliff is of course a different matter altogether. He is both evil and unredeemed, which is why he has much less fans than Rochester. Of course he too has his fans - to each his own.Originally Posted by kiki1982
The blinding and mutilation of Rochester has shocked generations of readers. Most of us feel she need not have carried out his punishment for attempted adultery to its biblical extreme ("If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out...If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.), but Charlotte is nothing if not extreme, and when all the details are added up, no doubt this is a great part of what carries her work to genius level.
But he is super sexy! I fell in love with him at the age of ten.Maybe you have to be female to get it.
Last edited by mona amon; 03-14-2015 at 12:45 AM.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Well Hearhcliff is clearly evil and yet maintains plenty of female fans, something I've never understood. I do totally get Rochester's appeal though, even if I deny his sexiness (Charlotte always describes him as a misshapen and ugly man).
Jane Eyre is by far the better book anyway.
So with the courage of a clown, or a cur, or a kite jerkin tight at it's tether
He is put into an environment of ice and fire though, in the beginning, which distinctly references Dante's Divina Comedia where the deeper the narrator goes down the circles of hell, the colder things become. The redemption, which is indeed obviously the idea of the novel in the first place, is all the more evident because Rochester had gone off the straight and narrow for so long and was almost lost, but for the 'angel' Jane who came onto his path, if you will.I don't think Charlotte intentended us to conclude he was a deluded liar and cheat, but rather a basically good man who had succumbed to adverse circumstances and wandered off from the straight and narrow, but is redeemed in the end. Corny as it all is, Charlotte carries it off with aplomb, and what is more appealing than a redeemed character? I do not think it is the attractiveness of evil that's at play in Rochester's case, but the attractiveness of redemption. Heathcliff is of course a different matter altogether. He is both evil and unredeemed, which is why he has much less fans than Rochester. Of course he too has his fans - to each his own.
The blinding and mutilation of Rochester has shocked generations of readers. Most of us feel she need not have carried out his punishment for attempted adultery to its biblical extreme ("If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out...If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.), but Charlotte is nothing if not extreme, and when all the details are added up, no doubt this is a great part of what carries her work to genius level.
But he is super sexy! I fell in love with him at the age of ten.
Heathcliff is redeemed briefly at the end, though, because he grows strangely calm and quiet. He first loses his frightening grip on Catherine and Hareton and from then on, he slides into a weird 'trance', eventually I guess taken to the other side by Cathy. In the beginning, her spirit couldn't get into the house, symbolising the closed desolation of the place, whereas if I recall rightly, at the end the window is open en Heathcliff has died with a smile on his face. I think that is redemption for you.
[edit] I forgot to add that misshapenness and particularly his blackness - and his ugliness - make Rochester the direct opposite of StJohn Rivers who is blonde with blue eyes and a Grecian profile. Charlotte Bronte was fond of physiognomy and clearly also intentionally gave her characters tell-tale traits. Ugliness, misshapenness and blackness mean he is in fact dodgy. Criminals were typically also seen as necessarily bad-looking. Despite that obviously not being true, in the 19th century even scientists thought this was a fact and therefrom concluded that black people and other Caucasian 'races' like the Laps were inferior. Although Rochester is very intelligent, as evident from his high forehead, he has a problem with benevolence. Not that he is malicious, far from, but he's got a problem with it. He won't do the good straightaway, let's put it like that. The remainder of his faculties don't help him either in terms of phrenology. On the opposite side, StJohn is blonde with blue eyes and a perfect profile, which makes him honest, open en inherently good. Obviously this doesn't mean StJohn is a more ideal man for Jane, but once again, it makes it quite evident what Charlotte's intention was.
As to sexiness, I for one prefer Rochester by far. Heathcliff is too extreme for me.
Last edited by kiki1982; 03-14-2015 at 04:39 PM.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Sauron isn't a character in Lord of the Rings - he's an off stage source of evil who never appears in his own person. I don't see how he could be regarded as attractive. Voldmort could be seen as tragic and certainly attracts followers, but I can't remember anything personally attractive about him, certainly once he becomes a snake.
Previously JonathanB
The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1
This may be a little off topic, but neither does Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes. He only turns up in discussions other people are having about him, with one exception. Holmes once points Moriarty out to Watson in a crowd (they are in a carriage at the time). And from Moriarty's subsequent movements in the story, it could not even have really been him (one of Conan Doyle's occasional blunders). Aside from that dubious episode, he has no "real time" presence at all. Perhaps that makes a villain seem more enigmatic? But Doyle and Tolkien were both moralists, and like Sauron, Moriarty is never an appealing presence.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 03-15-2015 at 01:06 PM.
The Judge from Blood Meridian is very charismatic, but pure evil. If I recall correctly, Amy Hungerford showed that McCarthy was referencing Milton's Satan when he created the character.
He's physically repulsive, though. I think Bloom sees him as the gnostic demiurge, who would be a fairly Satanic figure in any case. Personally I don't find the Judge attractive in any way, but you are right that he holds the party of killers in Blood Meridian in a kind of thrall.
I found him to be a very compelling character. The narrative seemed to take on the sick appeal of a car crash whenever the Judge had dialogue.
Not my idea of attractive.
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Vaguely related, though not really on topic: There is a scene in Blood Meridian in which the Judge carefully records some local rock art where the gang is hiding out, then deliberately destroys the actual rock drawings. My avatar is a photograph I took of Paleoindian rock art from the place where that scene takes place. It's from the mouth of a cave that provides a view of the sky, and is probably supposed to be a god combining the two aspects of the planet Venus in his eyes (somewhat like Quetzalcoatl).
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 03-18-2015 at 08:21 AM.
Just think of the gawkers' backups on the highway. I think a fairly high percentage of the people can be interested and repelled in something at the same time. That's the appeal of the Judge. I hate him, but damn is he cool.Not my idea of attractive.
"This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation... The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos."
I read that and was blown away.
LOL. Actually I've never come across any Voldemort fans, even though he's described as very handsome before the snake transformation. He's just a cardboard cutout villain with no depth or complexity - an uninteresting psychopath whom you hate because he goes around murdering and torturing and trying to become supreme ruler of the universe, but who isn't really interesting in any way. On the other hand Rowling has created some pretty multifaceted bad boys like Draco and Snape and they do have quite a fan following. Even 'Luscious" Lucius Malfoy has his fans, but probably only after being played by Jason Isaacs in the movies.
Rochester is not misshapen! Nowhere is he described as such. "I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term—broad chested and thin flanked, though neither tall nor graceful." Translation - "He is HOTTTT!!!"
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Pfffft. Translation - he's an oddly square, grim, squat, dark man. Adele's mom also totally makes fun of him for being an ugly freak when he's in France.
So with the courage of a clown, or a cur, or a kite jerkin tight at it's tether
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