Rochester Exposed

[poliphilo]

Rochester didn't want to be bad. None of us does. But then he was manoeuvred into doing a bad thing and that first bad thing led to other bad things- some of them worse (he was keeping Bertha in a windowless room for Chrissakes)- and now that he's been found out he's squirming in garrulous self-pity, threatening violence and making it very hard for the reader to like him.

He thinks (has thought all along) that marriage to Jane will get him out of his moral fix because she's innocent, unspoiled and if he sticks his dick in her some of that innocence is bound to rub off. Men have been thinking this of women since forever and it's the most awful shit and Jane- though he's subjecting her to a frightful emotional mauling- is having none of it.

How did Bronte get to know so much about men?

Comments

[ibid.livejournal.com]

As I get older I find Rochester more disturbing, the fact he doesn't think, the fact that he doesn't think of the consequences and what it might mean for Jane - especially when he says he will try violence. It makes me wonder if he is a potential rapist.

I remember discussing this on a forum actually and saying how it vaguely reminded me of a sadomasochistic relationship. The way Jane is constantly calling him 'Master' and her deliberate humility in order to assert her individuality and in the end call the shots, I find it interesting how in that sequence she is humble and humbles him - I don't know whether it subverts Victorian ideology or not.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Rochester is more Regency buck than Victorian gentleman. I think he's totally capable of sexual violence- and comes very close to raping Jane on at least one occasion.

Mind you, I think the scariest character in the book is St John Rivers. He's truly monstrous.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

St John is fascinating because as QD Levis pointed out he is a distortion of everything Victorian society demanded a good man to be - taken to its logical conclusion.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bronte admires him and detests him in about equal measure. It's fascinating.