Reflection on Mr. Rochester

I have to start by saying that I loved reading Jane Eyre. It might even have to go up there in my top ten favorite books. While in some regards, the outcome of Jane and Mr. Rochester’s relationship is entirely predictable, the twists and turns the novel takes to get there are the epitome of drama.

Despite my enjoyment, for this ultimate blog post, I want to delve deeper into a couple of opinions on the more controversial aspects of Jane Eyre.


Over the course of the novel, I became increasingly comfortable with the age gap between Mr. Rochester and Jane. For those who haven’t yet read Jane Eyre, this is the gap between an 18 year old female and a 35-40 year old male.

Although she makes Mr. Rochester double Jane’s age, Brontë does not dissuade the reader from rooting for their relationship. Mr. Rochester’s eventual injury serves to equalize them and it shows that they are truly codependent. From Jane’s perspective, we see that she does not view him as oppressive — which is important to any sound relationship. Mr. Rochester feels like he can confide in Jane because she is different from other women. These are all good things. In fact, the entire point of their functional marriage is to show that unconventional relationships work; that love is not defined by social status, wealth, or age.

However, I think it’s hardly appropriate for me (a near 18 year old) to go off and marry a 35+ year old. Since it’s equally wrong for me to do this now as it was in the 1800s, I began to wonder if Victorian society got something right. It’s hard for me to say so because there were so many flawed aspects of ‘traditional’ marriages. For example, I’m opposed to the sentiment that a person must marry within a specific gender, race, or social status. And it’s a very good thing that these issues are addressed in the present day.

Now I’m left asking myself: was Brontë’s use of age to illustrate unconventionality ahead of its time or was it wrong? So, I’m troubled… If I believe the message love is love (which I do), where can I draw the line? Moreover, where does unconventional become inappropriate?

After some thought, I realize the thing that troubles me the most about their age gap is not necessarily their difference in age. It’s how young Jane is. It seems to me as though in relationships between teenagers and older adults, the adult is preying on unequal social circumstance and experience.


Side note: One issue I have is that, as an 18 year old, I would not qualify myself as ready for marriage or familial commitments in any way. Jane’s opinion on marriage, even before her disaster at the altar, is not much better. She is apprehensive she will lose autonomy or fall out of love. These problems are too big for most people so new to adult relationships to handle.


However, my main issue with their relationship is that, even though their relationship ended with an equal power dynamic, it started when Mr. Rochester held immense authority over Jane.

This authority stemmed from Mr. Rochester’s social standing, which reflected his gender, wealth, and age. In their first interaction, none of these things matter because Mr. Rochester is humanized by needing Jane’s help after a mishap with his horse. However, some of their following conversations don't sit well with me.

In the beginning, I found Jane’s behavior tense and formal. Mr. Rochester orders her into his presence and commands her— telling her where to sit, when to speak, and often asking uncomfortable probing questions like “Do you think me handsome” (132)? Under similar circumstances (if I were asked this question by my employer) I would consider it sexual harassment.

While the uncomfortable feeling I get from their early encounters could be explained by other factors toward their power inequality, Mr. Rochester clarifies that age is key. “Stubborn?” He says “and annoyed” Ah! It is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. That is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an inferior: that is (correcting himself), I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s advance in experience.” To paraphrase, Mr. Rochester is telling Jane that he didn’t mean to upset her by his rude displays of male authority, he is superior to her in no way other than his age. Although this isn’t actually their only difference, even if it were, it still sets up a worrisome dynamic.



Beyond age, I have some notable issues with Mr. Rochester. As I perused for evidence of his power over Jane, I began to notice, more often than not, Mr. Rochester is a terrible person!

As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post, he pretends to be a gypsy (fortune teller) in order to get Jane to reveal her feelings about him. While I previously thought this was entertaining, now the word that comes to mind is… manipulative. And Mr. Rochester is manipulative on more than one account.

When Jane asks why he pursued Blanche Ingram instead of her, he cunningly responds that he “feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because [he] wished to render [Jane] as madly in love with [him] as [he] was with [her]; and [he] knew jealousy would be the best ally [he] could call in for the furtherance to that end” (262). This just seems cruel. He uses his position as a male bachelor to toy with not only one but two women.

Then the evidence for Mr. Rochester’s terrible personality began to pile up. The most terrible thing he does to Jane (in Jane’s opinion) is lie to her about his wife, Bertha. There is so much to unwrap here.

For one, he locked up his mentally ill wife in the attic. This is an innately barbaric thing to do and it’s obviously not how mental health should be handled. I don’t even think that would be considered excusable at the time. What’s worse (as far as his character is concerned) is that he isn’t even sorry for this. He even has the gall to rationalize his behavior… forcibly.

“Jane! Will you hear reason?” he says as he bends down to speak into her ear, “because if you don’t, I’ll try violence” (302). Even though Jane is internally empowered by this, not frightened, I feel differently. I would be terrified if any man did this to me. How did this leave a positive impression the first time through?

Once Mr. Rochester eventually begins to tell Jane about why he acted the way he did, he doesn’t even acknowledge that locking Bertha up was the wrong thing to do. And he insists that he had to lie to protect his future.

To use his own words, “I could not live alone so I tried the companionship of mistresses. The first I chose was Céline Varens… It was a groveling fashion of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading” (312). Wow. I honestly can’t believe that Mr. Rochester is the heroine of this novel. He thinks he can just “choose” a woman. The way he treats women as objects of his affection is so misogynistic and the fact that he genuinely thinks the trouble with prostitution is how it affects his own reputation just shows what a vain, maniacal man he is. Not to mention that he is a racist who believes that slaves and prostitutes are inferior beings.

In fact, this part of his past and the shame he holds from it impacts how he treats Adele, who he openly disapproves of because she is a bastard child. The difference between how he reveres his own children (at the end) and treats Adele with contempt shows how far misled his character is from any path of good.


In the end, Mr. Rochester is punished for his sin of lying to Jane, atones, and therefore they are able to reunite and be married. But, in my personal opinion, there is no way Mr. Rochester possibly fit all of his failures into that one prayer— especially since he isn’t remorseful for many of them.

For a book that is acclaimed for being feminist, the female lead doesn’t end up with a very good man. If this had been obvious from the beginning, I would be less critical. However, the ending is intended to be happy. I wish that the message that love can be unconventional was less conflicted by the ugly nuances of their relationship. Jane can’t help but love him, so the overall message still works. Ultimately, it’s just disappointing that Mr. Rochester is remembered in literature as a good man/husband.