Divorce wasn't an option for Rochester because his wife was declared mad. Thus legal divorce, despite being socially unpopular, was impossible to attain because it would not be agreed upon by both parties.
Divorce wasn't an option for Rochester because his wife was declared mad. Thus legal divorce, despite being socially unpopular, was impossible to attain because it would not be agreed upon by both parties.
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/pptopic2.htmlOriginally Posted by Freshley
There are also reasons why marriage was not a state to be entered into lightly. Marriage was almost always for life -- English divorce law during the pre-1857 period was a truly bizarre medieval holdover (readers of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre will remember that Mr. Rochester couldn't divorce his insane wife). Simplifying a bit ("saving myself the trouble of writing what I do not perfectly recollect", as Jane Austen wrote in her History of England), almost the only grounds for divorce was the sexual infidelity of the wife; a husband who wished to divorce his wife for this reason had to get the permission of Parliament to sue for divorce; and the divorce trial was between the husband and the wife's alleged lover, with the wife herself more or less a bystander. All these finaglings cost quite a bit of money, so that only the rich could afford divorces. There was also the possibility of legal separations on grounds of cruelty, etc. (where neither spouse had the right to remarry), but the husband generally had absolute custody rights over any children, and could prevent the wife from seeing them at his whim.
http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/en...b/DIVORCEI.htm
That, and you can't sign divorce forms with either a candle or a knife.
From ROCHESTER'S point of view, he was being benevolent to Bertha/Antoinette, and he probably was - he could just as easily have pushed her from the battlements, and no one would have blinked an eye anywhere. However, I see little reason to take his account of his marriage at face value - he's a man who was force-fed a marriage to a woman who, for reasons he does not understand, goes insane. What Jean Rhys addresses in Wide Sargasso Sea is the possibility that Bertha's insanity, as well as the insanity of her family, is not genetic but is instead the perception of British colonials of what was brought on by British colonials. The cause-effect relationship of Bertha's insanity/bringing Bertha to England could go either way, but considering that Rochester transplanted Bertha from her home to an environment totally foreign to her and locks her away, I'm somewhat inclined to believe Rhys rather than Brontë on the point (though I may just be channeling my professor's bias).
Anyway, my thinking is that Rochester could have done worse, but he has not done as well by Bertha as he believes he has. That's just my opinion.
Por una cabeza
Si ella me olvida
Qué importa perderme
Mil veces la vida
Para qué vivir
(RobinHood3000 speaks fluent Rubber Duckese.) Quackedy quack quack Quack-Quackedy.
QED.
There is a good little essay that makes an excellent point about why Bronte chose to not have Rochester divorce his wife.
http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/en...b/DIVORCEI.htm
How Divorce Would Affect the Novel
Melissa Ziemba
If Mr. Rochester had been able to divorce Bertha and marry Jane without any complications the novel itself would become less powerful. For the central thrust in Jane Eyre is the development of Jane's strong character. If Rochester obtained a divorce from Bertha, his actions would be viewed as even more adulterous than they were portrayed in the novel, for he would be ending a marriage on account of his love for Jane. ...
Click on the link to read the rest.
The argument of How Divorce Would Affect the Novel, as pointed out by Sciencefan, catches the central point, the only point. Jane Eyre is a novel, ie. a fiction, a creation of Charlotte Bronte. The ethical decisions of the characters are valid only within the pages of the novel. It would be quite a stretch of imagination that they reflect Charlotte's morality, ie. that of the pre-Victorian society and ludicrous to judge the characters by our contemporary morals. To do such is the height of subjectivity, the inability to see the novel but through our own myopic vision.
Actually, at the time Charlotte wrote the book, many people were disgusted by Rochester locking up Bertha, because lunatic assylums were good places where they tried to cure people the best they could (we don't have to look at it in a contemporary kind of way) and, if even they couldn't cure them, looked after them so that they would be happy (host balls, feasts etc).
I think, as Charlotte put a lot of the bible in her book, maybe she meant the locked up wife in the attic as a kind of Christ figure who is being blocked out of Rochester's life. He is 'incredulous', up to three times (as the folowers of Christ in the bible): the first when she sets his bed alight, the second time when she stabs and bites Mason (her brother, maybe this was meant for Rochester though) and a third time on the wedding day, when he still argues that she may be his wife on paper, but not in spirit. It is only when he 'believes' (tries to rescue her from the fire she caused herself a month after Jane has left) that she disapears (read: is taken up to heaven) and that there is place for Jane who is to be resurected in a kind of Pentcost-ish scene (shimmering hearth, 3 candles, thinking she is a ghost etc)...
Bertha is very useful in the book as she decides what is to happen although she is in the attic and nobody knows that she is there. She apears on all the crucial moments.
Maybe she was also brought in the book by Charlotte to complain about the materialism of the rich in those days: Rochester's father was too stingy to devide his fortune between his two sons and so Edward had to marry rich although probably the fortune was big enough for the 2 of them. He got 30000 pounds from his wife who turned out to be mad. His father and brother didn't even take to pains to actually check her out first... Later in the book he (or the gipsy) tells Miss Ingram about the fact that his fortune is not a third of what is supposed and she doesn't want him anymore. Disgusting, because if 5000 pounds was enough for Jane to build a house next to Rochester's and to live comfortably for the rest of her life, then Rochester's fortune was certainly more than sufficiant (it must have been 100000 pounds about, if I can make an educated guess)... He was as rich as the sea is deep (as they say in Dutch) and still he needs to marry rich... I suppose many of those rich gentlemen were saddled with a wife like the sisters Eshton and Ingram. Most of them were bored stiff, because that kind of woman you can't talk with, only make conversation, yet a smart and clever woman as Jane can't make a claim on any gentleman like Rochester because she is not rich.
Both Bertha's and Rochester's family are punished and sacrifice for this materialism: the Masons sacrifice their daughter for a name, but she becomes mad and she is not noticed as the wife of, and Edward is sacrificed by his brother and father but both die and Rochester inherits everything, but he also gets punished for materialism: although he wants Jane and not any of the rich ladies, he still cares about his wife's (Jane's) appearance and takes her shopping. So he gets punished by the fire that takes his house, his 2 eyes, his hand and his looks away. So nothing of everything he had stays, apart from his briliant mind, that is the most important.
That the 2 caracters come together in the end is maybe a sneer at the conventions of the rich and materialistic world: Rochester can't actually say that his appearance as any good anymore (it was not even good to start with, and it got worse as he lost one eye, is blind and also lost a hand, and his face is scarred) and his house is no more and on top of that he does not care about appearance any more ('The thrid day from this will be our wedding day, Jane. Never mind about nice clothes and fine juwels. All that is not worth a fillip.'), although, at the first proposal, he took her shopping and he sent for the family juwels.
Comments are welcome...
Last edited by kiki1982; 07-11-2007 at 02:20 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)
What kind of authority do you have to make the claims that you do?
How many times have you read the book?
Have you read it recently?
Where did you get the idea of the "Christ figure"?
I don't recall Rochester being incredulous that Bertha attacked Mason.
I remember Rochester scolding Mason for having been warned.
""She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her."
"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at
once," said Mr. Rochester.
"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason.
"Oh, it was frightful!" he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect
it: she looked so quiet at first."
"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said--be on your guard
when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-
morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone.""
I have not read the book recently enough to disagree with you with any authority,
but I feel uncomfortable reading that much hidden meaning into any document.
I don't have any authority over this, but I thought as this is a literature interpretation forum it would be in its place. It would be nice to discuss this without any nasty remarks. The only person who would be able to tell us what was really meant by this story, would be the writer, but that is a little difficult I guess. It is not how many times you have read the book, that matters (I read it 3 times, actually), but how you read it. At any rate, 19th century writers that are still printed now never wrote anything without a proper meaning in it. At university we went a lot deeper than this...
Rochester was not incredulous about Mason being bitten by Bertha, but he is about the fact that she is his wife. If you take into account that Bertha tried to burn Rochester in his bed before and tries to bite him on the wedding day and that she did NOT try to burn Jane as she appeared in her bedroom 2 nights before the wedding, it seems hardly plausible that she tried to stab and bite her own brother, Jane actually being her worst enemy. It seems more plausible to me that by the light of a candle (which is not that much), she didn't recognise her brother and so took him for Rochester and tried to kill him. Then those three appearances make up the three of Christ before being taken to heaven. The fire being the forth and ascension to heaven.
There are many literature critics who believe this to be true and as Charlotte was a clergyman's daughter, it is possible. There are many other writers who have done this, and still many who do. Jane also is believed to be a Christ figure who is resurected in the end, like I said in a Pentcost like scene.
The appearances of Bertha seem to foretell the end of each phase in the relationship between Jane and Rochester. 1. After the first few laughs, Jane meets Rochester (not knowing it's him) on the causeway. After that the interview takes place. 2. After the next two meetings with him, Bertha tries to burn Rochester in his bed. After that he disappears in thin air (leaving for the Leas, the Eshton's place). 3. When Rochester returns he starts on the seduction of Jane straight away. This phase comes to a close when Mason is (mistakenly?) bitten by Bertha. Jane will leave for her aunt soon after that. 4. When Jane returns the party have left and a fortnight after that Rochester asks Jane to marry him. This Phase comes to a close when all are introduced to Bertha. After that the conversation between Rochester and Jane will take place and Jane will leave.
(5.?) Then Jane wanders around and is taken in, 'just before dying' by St John Rivers, his 2 sisters and the servant Hannah (read: Joseph of Arimathea, Mary of Magdala, Mary and Salome who put Jesus in the grave). After three days she gets up. A month after this they get a letter telling them that their uncle has died, this making Jane the heiress (not getting her money until around a year after that, but the situation is there), coincidentally at the same time Thornfield burns down.
In the Bible it says that when Christ died the curtain of the temple tore in 2 pieces. Guess what Bertha did with Jane's vail when she appeared in the room... She tore it in 2...
The fact that Jane seems to know that she cannot marry Rochester, that the wedding will not take place, makes her write to her uncle, who is still living causing Mason to find out. It sounds like Jesus telling his diciples that one amongst them was going to betray him. She also asks several times to make the situation go away like Jesus asked his father on the mount of olives.
Rochester also seems to know that it will be Mason who will finally tell on him. He tells Jane and she tells him that he doesn't have to fear Mason. They marry on the 3rd day after the 2nd proposal. Rochester will see again in the third year he is married to Jane, when they will also get a son.
The fact that the place is called Thornfield of all names and that it is circled by thorn trees, would be a big coincidence if nothing was meant by it. Thorn trees are believed to be the tree of life and good and evil that stood in the garden of Eden. Eve ate from one of them and was banned with Adam from the garden. If you look carefully, the two most important conversations between Jane and Rochester take place in the orchard (the conversation after Mason got bitten and the first proposal). The second proposal will take place also under the trees, but at Ferndean, a fearn being in many cultures a symbol of eternal happiness. There are numerous allusions to Genesis in the book as well.
The colour purple, light/darkness and wind also appear numerously in the book. Not without a reason I guess.
The book even ends with these words: 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’. And according to critics not only because they come from a clergyman (St John), but also because they are the essence of the book.
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)
Thank you for your explanation.
I apologize that you felt I was nasty toward you.
I was addressing the ideas which you shared.
I do not agree with all the hidden symbolism certain crtics feel is there.
When I read this:
"the place is called Thornfield of all names and that it is circled by thorn trees"
I thought for sure you were going to say it represented the crown of thorns.
Certainly the Crown of Thorns was a circle.
It is too subjective of a subject for me to feel comfortable discussing it.
As I said, I am more comfortable accepting things for the face value and not trying to read too much into it.
That is just a reflection of my preference.
No problem, sciencefan.
I am sure there is even more about the gospel in the book than I can see, as I don't know it by heart and in detail. And I am not prepared to go and read it especially for this
Still I find it an interesting concept.
I'll come and have a look regularly here.
About the divorce: if Rochester would have succeeded in divorcing his wife, then Jane would have married him after the first proposal and she wouldn't have had St John's proposal. St John Rivers is planning to marry on the conventional grounds: duty, support for his work etc. He does not want to marry her because he likes her or anything like that. She tells him that she wants to help him but doens't want to get married, but he says that he, a 25 year-old, cannot go to India with her, a 20 year-old, without being married. Jane doesn't see that as a good ground for marriage, nor do his sisters, but probably this was a very popular ground in those days, I can imagine. Jane is about to yield when she hears Rochester call out for her.
If she would have married Rochester from the first time there wouldn't have been a choice for her between a proper marriage (marriage in spirit, as it should be) and marriage for the outside world.
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)
I've read Jane Eyre many times over the years, first time when I was about 10 or so. Someone up the thread spoke of the truthfulness of the narrator. I've read plenty of unreliable narrators, and do not consider Jane unreliable in the least. She presented the good and bad in an even handed manner as far as I am concerned.
It was also brought up that the term Creole was used in a [possibly]derogatory manner. There are many definitions of Creole but it only sometimes refers to someone of African descent. So to imply prejudice on Rochester's part on that account is not applicable IMO.
Regarding The Wide Sargasso Sea...I started it, and couldn't finish, didn't care for the writing style. It felt totally untrue to the original. Which I suppose was the point, but still put me off.
Regarding hiding Bertha in the attic. It was first of all loads better than Bedlam, which was the usual course at the time.
And as far as hiding her madness from the young Rochester.....in that time and place I imagine it was quite easy to hide something of that nature.
Wish I'd found this thread before!
Hello!
I just found this article on the internet...
http://caxton.stockton.edu/browning/stories/storyReader$3
frightning...
But what I found was this:
Men often found themselves honeymooning with a frightened, sometimes hysterical bride who was afraid of her husband. Young women were absolutely ignorant in matters of sexual intercourse. For them the wedding night experience was nothing more than a bodily assault. The typical Victorian man, highly skilled in matters of courtship, but unenlightened to the considerate lovemaking his wife craved, merely exercised his rights and she performed her duty (Battan 176).
James Russell Price, a physician, can attest to the fact that forced sex occurred with frequency. Having studied one hundred cases of wives seeking separations from their husbands, he found that sixty eight percent cited sexual abuse “on the first night of married life.” He related one account of an eighteen-year old bride. Filled with fear on her wedding night, she pleaded with her husband not to kill her. He proceeded to lock the door and “took her against her will.” The young bride assured Dr. Price that she was incapable of forgiving or forgetting her husband’s brutality (Battan 169).
Maybe Rochester was too brutal on the wedding night with Bertha. One would go mad for less...
It is a very interesting article...
This was just a morbid joke though...
Last edited by kiki1982; 07-13-2007 at 06:42 AM.
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)
I have no doubt that Jane was true to the intent of Charlotte Brontë, but how balanced is Brontë's view?I've read Jane Eyre many times over the years, first time when I was about 10 or so. Someone up the thread spoke of the truthfulness of the narrator. I've read plenty of unreliable narrators, and do not consider Jane unreliable in the least. She presented the good and bad in an even handed manner as far as I am concerned.
It was also brought up that the term Creole was used in a [possibly]derogatory manner. There are many definitions of Creole but it only sometimes refers to someone of African descent. So to imply prejudice on Rochester's part on that account is not applicable IMO.
Regarding The Wide Sargasso Sea...I started it, and couldn't finish, didn't care for the writing style. It felt totally untrue to the original. Which I suppose was the point, but still put me off.
Regarding hiding Bertha in the attic. It was first of all loads better than Bedlam, which was the usual course at the time.
And as far as hiding her madness from the young Rochester.....in that time and place I imagine it was quite easy to hide something of that nature.
Wish I'd found this thread before!
Creole with reference to Bertha is not referring to African descent, but it nonetheless decries prejudice on Rochester's part. She's from the Caribbean islands, and even that alone (the lack of a traditional British upbringing) would be enough for a Victorian man to mistreat her on the basis of prejudice.
And trust me, you'll want to finish Wide Sargasso Sea. You'll have to if you want as much perspective on Jane Eyre as possible.
Por una cabeza
Si ella me olvida
Qué importa perderme
Mil veces la vida
Para qué vivir
Good question, how balanced could it have been given the time and place?
I seriously doubt Bronte [within herself] was prejudiced, but could have of course been under the common misconceptions of the times.
The fact that she used the ambiguous term 'Creole' could be evidence she was implying African descent, which would have been looked down upon then. In the States in that time, especially in the South, there were many free people of African descent that were commonly referred to as 'Creole'.
With that recommendation, I suppose I'll have to throw WSS back into the stack. Although I hasten to add I don't think it adds to Jane at all, it seems to me that being written by a different author totally skews the equation.
But I didn't like the sequel to Gone With the Wind either.
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