Mr Rochester and Charlotte Bronte

[kiki1982]

No, he is not monodimensional.

I am not at all determined to dislike him. Believe it or not, I love him! But it is not because he is a great character and a passionate man, that he needs to be a good character. It is totally against all allusions, all circumstantial evidence, feminist theories about the 'restained' other of Jane and sexual repression, and the salve metaphor. Ever heard of Irony? I never had the advantage to read Jane Eyre before I knew the end, but it seems to me that the scene with Bertha is a kind of revelation about his real character. It is totally unnecessary from a logical point of view: at that moment it is clear he is a bigamist and liar. Why still bring the people there, but to see what he deemed good circumstances to lock her up in? Ah, yes, the fact that she was mad, but that was known before. There was no reason for him to show them how she looked, because it is irrelevant, totally irrelevant to the situation. She is mad, full stop. He has already a wife, full stop. He is not allowed to marry, full stop. His lament is an idle lament, there is no justification. It only adds horror, which Charlotte admitted to putting in, but why and where? How would one feel if walking into a cell, half-dark or barely lit, probably with bad air as there are no windows to air. Maybe add some smoke from the fire (if applicable). See the lunatic running back and forth in the shadow, or rather say 'dark', at the 'farther end of the room'. And then think that she has been there for 15 years (or at least ten)! Without having seen the world once in that time, without having seen the sky once, without having seen any daylight for those 10 years. And that because the husband wants to forget. He could have put her somewhere else, and forgot about her, for a quarter of the amount he paid Grace, and still had her treated well with good food, hygiene, and light (things that were deemed wholesome in those days). The image Charlotte gives does not justify. Certainly not in a time where there was optimism about the nature of insanity.
If a sane person were locked up like that, I don't think that after ten years he would still be sane, at least if he hadn't committed suicide, or tried it at least.
It seems that everyone wants to forget that the Victorians were determined to help that kind of things out of the world. It didn't last, not even to the end of the century because they did not know enough to be able to solve everything, and the optimism faded quickly, but this book was written during that brief time of optimism and as such, even if her condition was not curable, they would have thought it was. Thus the scene displaid cannot be positive.

[ksotikoula]

I am of the opinion that Rochester is first a cruel character, in whom is lacking compassion. He stages a real mascarade for Jane's benefit, he is a liar, and a would-be bigamist. He is also a hubristic character, in that he thinks that he can disrespect laws. But the end of the novel brings about his redemption. Here you have an experience of conversion, which also resembles a pilgrim's progress. Jane's spiritual progress is not the only one in the novel, it is parallelled by Rochester's.

I agree with you. I never said he was a flawless man. The first time I read their first three dialogues, I remember specifically closing the book exclaiming "What a jerk! Can't that girl find somebody in this novel who is nice?". It is not exactly his lack of compassion that makes him cruel. He has grown rough through disappointment. He even flatters himself that he is as tough as an Indian rubber ball. He has also turned into a misogynist. He says to Jane he doesn't mean to flatter her, if she is different than the "others" is not her achievement, but nature did it and then she may be full of faults he doesn't yet know. He is afraid of being hurt again. His relationships with women were devastating for him too. It is not nice to know someone is sleeping with you for your money and this is all the love he can get. And this shows, in how he misreads Jane after the proposal and wants to make her presents and comfort and protect her, misjudging her real needs, because he thinks women are generally happy this way. He doesn't know any better. The fact that he is not cruel shows from the love and respect his servants and tenants show for him. He may be abrupt and even unfair, when in temper, but he is good-hearted. And also you can not deny he made many efforts to come nearer to Jane and learn more about her. Part of his masquerade is really flattering in the sense that he tried hard to understand a kind of woman he had never encountered before. And he could value her. Blanche doesn't stand a chance now in front of Jane. He does mature and evolve through the novel. Jane certainly has a lot to teach him. He is reformed in the end. My problem with kiki's view is that I can forgive and partly justify all the harshness and lies and manipulation, but I could never as a reader forgive intended maltreatment of Bertha. That is why I said that Charlotte and Jane would be fools for accepting such a man. An abusive kind of man. Because this can not be rectified.

"There's also the fact that his very marriage with Bertha seems to constitute a sin, because he married her for the wrong reasons: lust and money."
Exactly! His argument is that this was not a real marriage in the sense of how people should feel in one. There is no respect, no liking each other: an utter sense of uncongeniality, an empty mockery. As I have said before it would be dissolved in no time, had Bertha continued to be sane.

[kiki1982]

I never said, or never wanted to say, that he intendedly mistreated her (tortured her, so to say), although he could have been more critical of her treatment. Had he been more compassionate, he had considered what was going on in that room and improved the circumstances.

The example I gave about the 'taking revenge' was only intended as an example of another idea. I dn't think it is true.

He needed to lock her up because otherwise she couldn't be forgotten. If she had been in an asylum, her brother could have visited her, the asylum would have known where the money came from. Yet to contemporary standards it stays cruel.

[ksotikoula]

Well kiki you certainly have a weird way of loving him . (I believe this is a kind of irony) . [I don't mean to be disrespectful and I am sorry if at any point I seemed hostile].

I had started discussing intended maltreatment with you, when I saw your next post about it. The thing is (and we agree in that) that he was never very sympathetic to Bertha (and partly understandably so), as she too was never towards him, because they were incompatible. He admits to Jane that if she (Jane) had gotten mad, he would behave differently towards her, he would be more involved in her care and treatment, because he would love still what she once was. He never saw anything in Bertha to like, to sympathize with, to mourn when her mind was totally gone. He just did his duty and followed the current "best" practice and you couldn't expect Charlotte to make a full research about the condition of asylums for a novel. "The woman in white seems" to imply the same about asylums by the way. It is really ironic that what Charlotte chose to present as best to the notions of the common people (not scientists with optimistic views) would condemn her hero in the eyes of the future public. In Rochester's sense (although he blames himself and family also for this) Bertha ruined him once, when alluring him to the wedding and making a hell out of their married life with her excesses and vices and now does it again when he has found the love of his life. So, he is not sympathetic to her, but he is neither physically cruel even when she is raging. He also tries to rescue her life. He does not consider her life conditions because it is not something that he is an expert on. He has hired Grace Poole and it is in her line of her business to take care of that together perhaps with Carter who doesn't seem to find it wrong too. Believe me he could forget her a lot more easily in an asylum than having her roaming in his house. People do that often now. Commit a person in the care of others and never ever visit. Her brother is too far away remember?

About the exhibition of Bertha: He bids them to come to the house as you said for dramatic reasons. We, as readers, deserve to see "the ghost" of Thornfield that has puzzled us for so long. It also accounts for his not being persecuted by the law. Jane and her family won't make charges against him and the others know him for a long time and respect him and pity him. It is also an act of despair. A way of saying this is the condition and is irreversible.

[Peripatetics]

Well kiki you certainly have a weird way of loving him. (I believe this is a kind of irony)....

Perhaps not, and perhaps not irony. Perhaps something more fundamental -

“Rationally St John is a better man to marry: he has had no mistresses (so you are less at risk as wife, to be usurped by one), he has no illegitimate child, he's got a steady job (the financial point is the only disadvantage for St John), he is beautiful to look at (certainly at the end of the book), he will never cheat on you because he is a man of God, he will never do anything wrong because he is a man of God. “(Mr. Rochester, post #4)

“Rochester is, up till now, the only character I really love. I don't know, I also swoon over him. I'd probably fall head over heels in love with him if he really existed... It's very strange, but he still seems very dangerous to know...” ( Mr. Rochester #6)

As a psychologist you might find the contrast interesting.

[kiki1982]

For a psychologist it might also be interesting to look at 'projection of an idea'. People seem to excuse everything the man did, 'because he is so passionate'. Dangerous attitude in the real world...

You see, I can also be childish if I want to, Peripatetics. But that does not have its merits in an adult discussion.

I love him as a character, Ksotikoula. In his first entry he was 'mad, bad and dangerous to know'.
But I suppose to every reader happens the same like to a mother who has given birth: all woe has been totally forgotten. All his foes have been totally forgotten, but it does not change the pain before as an absolute fact.

[ksotikoula]

Well I will be no one's psycholigist here especially without payment Lol!

I would never have though St John a good choice for marriage. In fact I agree heartingly with a woman who said she would rather run away back to the moors than marry him . He gives me the creeps. Although I understand what kiki means in a way: that he would be an eligible match for a victorian girl. In a Jane Eyre parody, Jane could be appearing closing each day her door against a line of unlegitimate children claiming to be Rochester's . But we make the man worse than he really is.

About Rochester I have come to terms with his being dangerous, mostly when I was able to find what was it exactly that made him frightening to me. After all he is just a man. I found out that it was not his sexuality or morality or anything in his character. It was the passionate, uncontrollable feelings he created in Jane. I came to the conclusion that no matter how much I loved the book, I would be afraid to experience a love so great as to nearly make me lose the limits of my personality and control. So it is the question of how far are you disposed to let anyone get so deep into your heart/mind/soul? Trust is very important in a relationship, but idolizing somebody the way Jane did, was like creating false gods and give them power over you. That is why Jane is punished in this tragedy called Jane Eyre. This was her Hubris. She forgot god and adored one of His creations. Charlotte didn't approve of extreme passion either. It is a search of a balance between passion vs reason, passion vs morality and passion vs independence (because loneliness is a high price to pay for independence and on the other hand love can be humiliating to your pride and sense of self).

[kiki1982]

Good point.

St John, I wouldn't be seen dead with him , but indeed if you want an eligible match and someone that will be faithful, to you, oh well. If you want that in stead of a husband who loves you, then no problem... It all depends on your priorities in life. (There are Charlottes and Elizabeths (Pride and Prejudice))

[Peripatetics]

Well I will be no one's psycholigist here especially without payment Lol!

So Rochester's paraphrase: 'Most will do anything for money', stand? Lol! Sex has precedence over reason.
Are things so bad in Greece? Sorry no job offer. What I suggested was purely an intellectual exercise. A change of perspective: that the source of the apparent contradictions should be looked for not in the text but in the reader.

Addendum - you might be interested.
From NYT, 17 Feb '09, article: In Pain and Joy of Envy, the Brain May Play a Role

One vice, however, dispenses with any hedonic trappings and instead feels so painful you would think it was a virtue, except that there’s no gain in lean muscle mass at the end: envy. Skulking at sixth place on traditional lists of the seven deadly sins, right between wrath and pride, envy is the deep, often hostile resentment you feel toward somebody who has something you want, like wealth, beauty, a promotion or the admiration of peers. It is a vice few can avoid yet nobody craves, for to experience envy is to feel small and inferior, a loser shrink-wrapped in spite.

[kiki1982]

Yet the source is consistent as it is a product of a reader.

[ksotikoula]

Thank you for the article peripatetics! It was indeed interesting.

Yes, unfortunately business opportunities for our profession are pretty slim in Greece I'm afraid . Though I would not do anything disagreeable for money, let alone to do it without it.

In fact, I almost regret that during the conversation I revealed my profession in order to support the validity of my knowledge. And this for two reasons: 1) my opinions tend to get judged more severely and on a personal-professional level (like kiki said "would you as a psychologist lock up somebody in a dark room...") and 2) there are many people who want the "experts" to support their view and getting in the way is not pretty wise. I perceive you have a long disagreement with each other and I don't want to rush into it criticizing opinions and even less characters. I don't profess to know either of you well, so I will abstain from judging both of you. So I from now on I would like to express my personal and not professional opinions and I intent on sticking strictly to Jane Eyre topics .

[Peripatetics]

Yes, unfortunately business opportunities for our profession are pretty slim in Greece I'm afraid . Though I would not do anything disagreeable for money, let alone to do it without it.)

Well at least stay out of the riots.
Formidable avatar!LOL

δεν πιστεύω ότι μία κοπέλα
που αναζητά το φως του ήλιου
θα είναι ποτέ
έχουν σοφία
όπως αυτό

sorry for the bad translation but I do not have access to a Greek word processor.

You are right to stay out of our disagreements. Unfortunately the discussion which was originally on Jane Eyre has degenerated.

[Bitterfly]

[QUOTE=ksotikoula;673636]I agree with you. I never said he was a flawless man. The first time I read their first three dialogues, I remember specifically closing the book exclaiming "What a jerk! Can't that girl find somebody in this novel who is nice?".

Ha ha, I actually liked their first dialogues, they're witty and constitute a marvellous flirtation. But I get your point. I agree with most of what you say next, but I like arguing, so here goes.

He is afraid of being hurt again. His relationships with women were devastating for him too. It is not nice to know someone is sleeping with you for your money and this is all the love he can get. And this shows, in how he misreads Jane after the proposal and wants to make her presents and comfort and protect her, misjudging her real needs, because he thinks women are generally happy this way.

Why not.. Your interpretation is interesting and I hadn't thought of the problem in such a way. I saw his showering of Jane with presents and especially dresses as a (subconscious?) way to make up for her social inferiority, which she refuses because she has to make her way up the social ladder by herself. And also as a sort of extended manipulation of her: first he manipulates her by deceiving her, then he manipulates her literally, by treating her like a doll.

And the sartorial motif is also related to the idea of deceiving appearances: he wants to transform her into something she is not - a beauty, a harem girl, a lady (a "peeress", says Jane). That's something he tries to do a lot (she's an angel - something Jane herself denies vehemently - a fairy...).

As for his previous relationships, well... he married Bertha for her thirty thousand pounds, and if he was cheated in turn, that doesn't make me very sorry. And OK, Cécile cheated him as well, but he treated his next mistresses like disposable merchandise ("hiring mistresses", he says, and that does show it all, no?).

My problem with kiki's view is that I can forgive and partly justify all the harshness and lies and manipulation, but I could never as a reader forgive intended maltreatment of Bertha. That is why I said that Charlotte and Jane would be fools for accepting such a man. An abusive kind of man. Because this can not be rectified.

I see what you mean more clearly now, and it's true that it is difficult to really make Rochester into an abusive man. He doesn't seem violent towards her, after all (except in the bondage scene, and she starts the fight). But you must admit that one can argue that shutting her up in the dark does not constitute humane treatment of his wife, no? And I think one could also argue that he plays a part in her transformation from Beauty to beast, because it seems incredible that the belle of Spanish Town should be metamorphosed so rather swiftly into a monster.

What REALLY bothers me, actually, is that we never get to hear Bertha's side of things: Jane has obviously integrated the patriarchal system of values in which madmen/Creoles etc are made to be marginalised and got rid of, and I'm not sure we can trust Rochester's version of the story, since he lies so much before... I understand Jean Rhys wanting to give her a voice, because without it there's a sort of gap in the novel (maybe for contemporary readers).

[ksotikoula]

To peripatetics:
δεν πιστεύω ότι μία κοπέλα
που αναζητά το φως του ήλιου
θα είναι ποτέ
έχουν σοφία
όπως αυτό
The last 3 lines don't make sense unfortunately. You can type them in English if you like. Do you speak any Greek at all or what you write is through a translator?

About the avatar it goes with the name. Ksotikoula means little female elf. In Greek: Ξωτικούλα, from Ξωτικό=elf.

To Bitterfly:
About Rochester:
I truly believe his behavior with presents towards her, stems mostly from a need to overindulge and spoil her to her heart's content. And he is a large-with-money kind of man. When she leaves for Gateshead he tries to give her 50 pounds which is nearly the double of her annual income. He is amazed to find out how she survived Lowood for so long and he is kind of amused with the idea of with how little money she can live on. Obviously he has never been in need of them and he is proud of his power in all respects. Now that she is under his protection he is about to make amends for all her previous misfortunes "Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her?".
What made me come to this conclusion was the question "How he -who is obviously a clever man and also a man capable of "handling" both Bertha and Jane at a time-could be such a sucker in the case of Celine?". Apart from the obvious conclusion that he was a younger man then and also that his correction could be due to his being capable of learning from his mistakes, seeing him in his effort to express in deed his love towards Jane, made me see why. He has a preconceived idea of how he should treat a woman (it is that of a big spender) and he is so impulsive and so gallant in his behavior that it is like shouting out "I have money to throw away". (Now if you were Celine wouldn't interpret that like "I want to be exploited"?) You will say why follow this tactic with Jane, if it failed with Celine? Hasn't he learned anything? No, he is just assured that Jane doesn't want him for his money ("Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?" but when she denies him he says "you don't love me, then? It was only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued?". He has a constant fear that he is wanted for his money only.) But during the period before the wedding he is safe with her and he is a very generous and also proud man to be able to do things for her. Jane says to him "I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector". That is how she sees it too, no matter if her natural pride was hurt from his "role of giver" and that she was pained to feel obliged to him financially.

He does not want to make her something she is not. He tries to show her that he would show this kind of attention to the woman that he loved no matter if she was a beauty or not, a peeress or a plebeian. The weird part is where he tells her that he wants to make the whole world acknowledge her beauty. Jane doesn't want the attention and also has a complex with her appearance. I am not sure why he does that. He is not being ironic certainly. I think he ventures to be poetical using heavy "romantic lines" as he thinks that "any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise." (stereotype again). She is a beauty in his eyes and an angel. The fact is he has not great social skills. He has bad manners when she meets him, he can not make a decent offer of marriage (even Jane teases him on that "he [St John] asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be), he is abrupt and he curses. But it is true that he partly idealizes her with the "angel". He has great hopes on her reforming him and that feels a heavy burden on her shoulders.

As for his previous relationships, well... he married Bertha for her thirty thousand pounds, and if he was cheated in turn, that doesn't make me very sorry.

I disagree a little about the money issue. He married Bertha because mainly he was raised up with the option to marry whom his father arranged that he should. Jane says observing him and his guests: "the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles.". Yes she admits later that she is being lenient to him because she was in love with him, but it is similar to what he says:
"When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty...There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission."
You may not think him a reliable narrator, but I believe he was really a spoiled (as he admitted) young man who was bid to meet a woman that his father wanted him to marry. Edward didn't hear of her dowry: perhaps the father didn't like to show so overtly his selling him to the Mason family, but could it be also that his father considered Edward too much of an idealist to be interested in the deal or even capable of opposition? Edward at any case didn't think of her money when it came to the marriage, because he was in no way deprived of them at that time. But he must have felt he was to do what his father told him in order to maintain his favor and also until then the father hadn't done anything to make Edward disobey him and not trust him. Luckily (how ironic that luckily is) the woman his father had chosen was cute and more than that. She was a sensual beauty and she was provoking him, while her family approved and rivals were jealous (or so he thought). So, he would marry one day or other someone that either would appeal to him or someone who his father would approve or both. And Bertha was both. This is my version of what I think happened. You are entitled to have yours. What I want to say with this is that Edward was never mercenary. He was thoughtless and unable to control firmly his urges. But then he had the sanctions of everybody, so it didn't seem wrong. And so Bertha isn't justified for cheating on him, because with the same reasoning, since she was cheating on him, he had every right to believe she had broken her agreement of faithfulness in her marriage and to retaliate with his mistresses.

And OK, Cécile cheated him as well, but he treated his next mistresses like disposable merchandise ("hiring mistresses", he says, and that does show it all, no?).

I agree and understand why you don't like his view of them. However, after being sold by his father to Bertha's family and after being cheated by Celine (whose fake love he thought real) you can not help thinking what was his opinions about sexual relationships. Love became an illusion to him and his life was ruined anyway. So (using Caroline Helstone's words from Shirley) "how was he to fill the gap between him and the grave?". He says "Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation -never debauchery". He has already admitted "I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life... since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life". His relationships with women were transactions: money for company (everyone got what they wanted or sort of: he could not buy love and his mistress would prefer just his money). He could not continue the illusion of love after Celine. He was once bought (by the Masons) and buys the rest of the world. He was used and uses others. A bitter way of living, but thus has been life to him so far. However he was dissatisfied in it. He was not a man that liked debauchery from character. It was not a worthy way of living and he was not proud of it, as he says "I should have been superior to circumstances". It is obvious I have a far better opinion of him than you. He is not an unreliable narrator for me because he always told the good with the bad. He, from the beginning told, Jane he is not a good man or as good as he should be. He even cautions her to think of guilt when she is tempted to err. He refers always to his past, beating about the bush, trying to figure out if Jane would be open-minded enough to accept him. And what a great irony this is! He searched the whole world to find somebody to love and that somebody is too ethical to want to be with him.

He doesn't seem violent towards her, after all (except in the bondage scene, and she starts the fight). But you must admit that one can argue that shutting her up in the dark does not constitute humane treatment of his wife, no?

We go again to judge him about his treatment to Bertha. I disagree. His treatment was the usual of the era and in some aspects better. He was no expert on the subject, he followed what was the common practice and had no personal interest to experiment on the subject of madness and its treatment in general. He was as inhumane, as all of his era.

And I think one could also argue that he plays a part in her transformation from Beauty to beast, because it seems incredible that the belle of Spanish Town should be metamorphosed so rather swiftly into a monster.

It took 15 years of illness and no medical treatment, let alone her alcoholism, to get Bertha become from a belle into a monster. There is nothing strange in that. It would be much the same if Rochester never came along. Bertha was genetically predisposed to develop her illness in some time of her life. Her heredity bear ill to her. The onset of her illness may be equally be put down in her alcoholism, as well as to the fact that her role, as a wife had new requirements for her, i.e. to be able to run a household. You can not prove it was him who was responsible. There is no way you can make a normal person go mad (and we don't want to go back to discussions about deliberate torture and abuse) and since her madness did not suit Rochester at all (it is the reason why he can't divorce her) he did not contributed to it. He tried to make this marriage work. He didn't like her character and habits, but didn't remonstrated, he even tolerated her cheating on him, he was as lenient as she could get. "I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt."

What REALLY bothers me, actually, is that we never get to hear Bertha's side of things: Jane has obviously integrated the patriarchal system of values in which madmen/Creoles etc are made to be marginalised and got rid of, and I'm not sure we can trust Rochester's version of the story, since he lies so much before... I understand Jean Rhys wanting to give her a voice, because without it there's a sort of gap in the novel (maybe for contemporary readers).

There is no gap in the novel in my opinion. I was never interested in hearing Bertha's side of things, which would be delirious anyway, since I take her to be what she is presented in the novel, a mentally ill woman. This is not a court. It is a novel told by a young woman named Jane Eyre about her life (not Bertha's) and not "the exorcism of Emily Rose". If Rhys wanted to treat Bertha's story she could write a book with her own characters (as she did because her Rochester is not the man Bronte created) but she would better name them otherwise. This would enable her to show whatever she wanted to show without distorting a character from another book. But then she wouldn't sell as much, would she? She would be better judged (and perhaps more lenient) for her worth as a writer and not her opinion about a famous book. It is absurd to judge a book by another book by different author. But then what would happen to the "prequel" of Jane Eyre?

P.S: I too like the first dialogues Jane and Rochester have. They are indeed intellectual, highly interesting and also funny, exactly because he behaves so much like a jerk.

[kiki1982]

I repeat it, and I will keep repeating it: Bertha’s treatment was maybe possible, but not approved of and certainly not better than if she had been placed in an asylum.

Iwana from Brown University states:

‘Ultimately, investigation into the condition of mental institutions at the time of the publication of Jane Eyre reveals that although poor and abusive conditions and overcrowding were prevalent in Victorian era mental asylums, there also existed a surprising level of awareness of the plight of the mentally ill and a widespread desire to improve the conditions of asylums and the treatments they offered to those who were incapable of functioning in regular society due to mental illness.’

There were definitely better alternatives. Harriet Martineau, in an article on Hanwell Lunatic Asylum she visited in 1834 wrote:

‘Where are the chains, and the straw, and the darkness ? Where are the howls, and the yells, without which the place cannot be supposed a mad -house ? There is not a chain in the house, nor any intention that there ever shall be ; and those who might, in a moment, be provoked to howl and yell, are lying quietly in bed, talking to themselves, as there is no one else present to talk to.’

‘A few, who are not to be trusted with the use of their hands, but who are better in society than alone, are walking about their ward, with their arms gently confined ; but, out of five hundred and sixty-six patients, only ten are under even so much restraint as this.’

‘It is nearly twenty years since Doctor and Mrs Ellis began to treat lunatics as much as possible as if they were sane; and in all that time no accident has happened.’

‘The chance of the rich lunatic for recovery, or for happiness, if he be not recoverable, is undoubtedly much better than that of the pauper, if it be duly improved.’

‘The inferiority of condition of the rich lunatic will not be questioned. It is only in circumstances of subordinate importance that he is more favoured than the most wretched patient in the worst cell of a bad workhouse; and, in all that is essential, his situation is not to be compared with any one of the paupers under Dr Ellis's care.’ (with ‘subordinate importance’ she means the quality of food, his clothes and furnishings)

‘Yet it is the ignorant, gin-drinking pauper whom we now see entertained with constant employment, and governed by a look or a sign, while the educated gentleman and accomplished lady are left helpless, to be preyed upon by diseased thoughts, and consigned to strait- waistcoats and bonds! This is barbarity, this is iniquity, whatever may be done for them besides. Let their secret be ever so carefully kept, let their physicians have their forty or fifty guineas a week, every week of the year, let heaven be wearied with prayers and tears on their behalf, they are each still as oppressed and injured beings as any wretch for whose sake the responsible shall be brought into judgment.’

‘Why must such institutions be public, and under the superintendence of official guardians, some will ask: and then they will tell us of private asylums, where gardening and study go on, and which are fitted up with turning lathes, and musical instruments. But the question is not whether any private asylums are so conducted, but whether all are.’

‘It should be remembered that the irritable are exasperated by opposition, and not by freedom.’

It is clear to me that Hanwell was not only asylum like this and that there were private ones that offered the same regime.

A report in the Albion (New York) reported In 1841 on Hanwell:
‘The Report abounds with a variety of instructions as to the detail of management; many of which appear essential to its success: such as the perfect unanimity of the officers and attendants as respects the plan itself:- a point but recently achieved at Hanwell.

The attendants moreover must be powerful in body and kind in disposition, and of great forbearance of temper; they must, therefore.be a more highly paid class than are ordinarily found in lunatic asylums, and they must also be more numerous, viz. one to every eighteen patients.

The beautiful grounds for recreations and gardening, and the industrial occupations for those who are sufficiently recovered to pursue them, form important elements of the system. In fact, no resource is neglected of which the effect is to calm the feelings, to remove excitement, to appease passion, to divert the mind from the topics of its disease, and as the ground-work of all moral remedies, to improve and establish bodily health and strength.
The attention to cleanliness is extreme ; nor can a stronger evidence of this be given than the fact that thirty thousand gallons of water, are required for the daily use of the establishment. Scrupulous cleanliness in every possible respect is among the most rigidly enforced rules; and a variety of means compatible with the perfect freedom of the patient, both at night and by day, are adopted, the simplicity and general success of which leave little to be desired.’

On violence the same magazine wrote:

‘The resource which is adopted at Hanwell in cases of extreme violence is that of seclusion.

" But to secure the advantages of seclusion, it must be remembered, that the term is applied to the temporary confinement of a lunatic in his own bedroom ; sometimes with the light partially excluded, sometimes almost entirely ; that it must not be hastily resorted to ; not carried into effect with anger, but steadily accomplished, when persuasion fails, by a sufficient number of attendants ; that it must not be accompanied with irritating expressions ; nor applied as a punishment; nor unreasonably prolonged. The state of the patient in seclusion should be ascertained from time to time through the inspection-plate ; and any appearance of contrition should be met with kindness."

It seldom fails, it appears,

" to tranquillize the patient in a short time, and is generally productive of immediate composure."

It is also obviously a far less exciting course to the others than that of the spectacle of an infuriated patient running about the ward degraded and irritated by the muff or sleeves. The imposition of such restraints, moreover, was often accomplished only after a severe struggle, always severest when restraint was most required, and a revengeful feeling was usually left in the patient's mind, which does not ensue from seclusion. ‘
It seems to me the rope which is at hand and is used by Rochester is severely outdated. If it is at hand it means that it is used (frequently). I cannot imagine that Grace would have been so ‘kind’ with Bertha, certainly not as she frequently drinks as well. The fact that at Hanwell, seclusion was only used to calm the patient down is a striking contrast with Bertha’s permanent seclusion.

On ‘the old method’, they write:

‘As respects the old mode of treatment, it is difficult to rise from the perusal of the Report, without a strong conviction that coercive appliances are inefficient as a means of preventing accidents ; whilst their irritating effects on the violent, the alarm they occasion to timid, and their tendency to debase those to whom they are applied, creating incurable habits of uncleanliness, are evil from which the use of restraints have been found inseparable.’

They certainly link violent behavior with restraint and they also abhor uncleanliness.

Middlesex University states:

‘Therapeutic Optimism: The optimistic period in the history of asylums runs from about 1830 to around 1860. It was at its height in the 1840s. Asylums built under the 1808 and 1828 County Asylums Act tended to be left to the management of doctors. As the theories and techniques of managing lunatics in asylums developed, so did the belief that this asylum treatment itself was the correct, scientific way to cure lunacy.
Signs of the therapeutic change can be seen in the changing legislation. The 1828 Madhouses Act, unlike the 1774 Act, was concerned about conditions in asylums. These included the moral conditions. Official visitors were required to inquire about the performance of divine service and its effects. In 1832, this inquiry was extended to include "what description of employment, amusement or recreation (if any) is provided"'.

It is clear from these accounts that Victorians in the 1830s to 1860s had an optimism as to the curability of mentally ill people. It is furthermore obvious to me that mechanical restraint and confining to the room was only used in extreme cases and that violence was considered as an effect of restraint. The rope that is at hand as if ‘natural’, in that sense, is a prominent feature that tells which method was used to manage Bertha. If it were never used it would not be so directly at hand that Grace just took it and Rochester directly knew what to do with it. Furthermore, Bertha is considered as ‘cunning’ and unpredictable. If indeed violence were the effect of restraint, then it is clear why Bertha is violent towards Rochester and never changes in that…

In July 1844, Blackwood’s Magazine, which the Brontës read, wrote on the lunatic asylum in Palermo, Sicily:

‘Cleanliness, good fare, a garden and the suppression of all violence - these have become immutable canons for the conduct of such institutions, and fortunately demand little more than ordinary good feeling and intelligence in the superintendent’

It needs to be noted that ‘suppression’ means ‘denial’ as in Freud and ‘immutable’ means ‘binding’.

If even in Italy this was practiced, it is not only isolated to England. Furthermore, Blackwood’s talks of ‘immutable canons’. In other words, it was a standard practice by the 1840s to not restrain people on their arms, legs, or neck, nor was it standard to flog them or confine them in the dark for 10 years on end. The emphasis was on useful occupation, cleanliness, and good food. In short: ‘make them happy and they won’t be violent’.

Whether this is psychologically true or not, from a contemporary point of view is unimportant, as Victorians believed it and the first readers of Jane Eyre must have read that book in that context. Obviously, and justly, Brontë was criticized. If it was indeed ‘canon’ that people were no longer confined to their rooms alone in the dark for ten years then readers were justly horrified.

Whether Rochester willingly ‘tortured’ Bertha is not provable or disprovable. The only thing it really evokes with certainty is that he could not care less. If he had cared seriously, then he could have sought a much better place. Already in the 1830s or even earlier. So even backdated Rochester’s management of Bertha is not according to the most humane circumstances.

The issue was even debated in the press:

‘In the early 1840s asylum doctors divided into hostile camps of those who practised "mild restraint" and those who followed Lincoln and Hanwell in establishing non-restraint. The debate involved the JPs who governed the asylums, the religious ministers required in Asylums under the 1828 County Asylums Act, the medical profession outside asylums, the medical press, the non-medical press, parliament - and eventually everyone with a taste for reading salacious and vitriolic accusations and counter-accusations as the contenders published selections from one another's case notes in an effort to prove their point.’

If it was indeed debated in the non-medical press, Brontë with all her access to newspaper and magazines must have read things about it and definitely have had an opinion (as the rope and the desire for horror suggest).