Byronic Hero: Bad News for the Ladies?

1/13/2012

Rochester is a tormented character, full of contradictions, particularly when it comes to his treatment of Jane. Modern readers aren't always sure what to make of him--perhaps for good reason. Critics have long touted Rochester as an example of the Byronic Hero, a seething, dark, yet powerfully attractive male character. This archetype was developed in the writings of Lord Byron during the Romantic period (roughly 1770-1840), and continues to manifest in pop culture today (Edward Cullen, anyone?).

In order to gain more literary and historical context, please read the following articles online:

1. Overview of the Byronic Hero
http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/sfarris/Files/AP%20Lit%20Files/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Characteristics%20of%20the%20Byronic%20Hero.pdf

2. Overview of Romanticism
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html

Considering both articles, as well as your assigned reading in Jane Eyre, please write a post that answers the following questions. To what extent can Rochester be considered a Byronic Hero? Which of these qualities are attractive to Jane? Which of these qualities push her away and/or contribute to her flight in Chapter 27? Please integrate direct quotes into your analysis. Please also reply to at least one of your classmates.

Length: 2-3 paragraphs for original post. 1-2 paragraphs for reply to classmate.

Due: Monday night (Jan 16), by midnight at the latest.

24 Comments

Nate McCann

1/16/2012 01:23:34 am

Mr. Rochester’s character is in every way a Byronic hero. First and foremost he never obeys the rules of society set during the Victorian era. As a man of his stature, his choice of wife should be a woman who is of equal or higher standing without regard for her personality or character. Instead he did the exact opposite when he asked Jane, a woman far below his status in society, to be his wife. While he did in fact share some affection for Blanche and even made a convincing façade of marrying her, he only did this in order to spark jealously in Jane. He married Jane for her strong willed and independent personality not for her money or position.
Another way Mr. Rochester defied the ways of a Victorian gentleman is how he often travelled instead of staying in society. A Byronic hero is often isolated from the rest of his society. In both before and after his first marriage Mr. Rochester separated himself from everyone in his community. His brother and father sent him away to gain his own fortune in Jamaica and his dark secret about Bertha upon returning to Thornfield caused him to isolate himself and rarely have company.
Finally, Mr. Rochester’s brashness and passion define his Byronic personality. Jane becomes the light of his life and he tries to shower with her with his affection through jewels, love, and showing Jane that he views her as his equal. However, these displays of fondness are a double edged sword for Jane. While she does adore Mr. Rochester her dreams and anxiety cause her to doubt herself, her independence and strong will remind her that marriage will perhaps imprison her which is the very thing she wishes to avoid. She feels torn, knowing that leaving him is probably the right course of action while at the same time she doesn’t want to make him any more miserable then he already is. “Consider the recklessness following on despair – soothe him; save him; love him; tell him your love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? Or who will be injured by what you do?” (Bronte pg. 319). While Mr. Rochester’s qualities of deep passion and love appeal to Jane, his recklessness to do anything for her, including breaking the rules of society causes her to leave him.

Destiny Desroche

1/16/2012 02:53:42 am

Hey Nate, I agree with most of your points, but I have an issue with your phrasing (I guess). You said "another way Mr. Rochester defied the ways of a Victorian gentleman is how he often travelled instead of staying in society," but this wasn't an issue for a Victorian gentleman. They could travel all they wanted (mostly for business propositions or contracts for marriage). I think you were trying to say that he had one of the same qualities as a Byronic hero, but your phrasing was weird. Just checking...Besides that, I love the quote you chose. In fact, you stole it from me. Alas, there are many quotes in the book, so I'll survive. In short, I agree with all of your points, especially your example of Rochester's isolation.

Destiny Desroche

1/16/2012 02:42:50 am

Looks like I’m the first one this time…Okay, so someone needs to reply quickly because I have go to work later and I won’t be home until like 11. I’m so glad I’m not the only person who waits so long, but now I totally regret my procrastination. Anyway, here goes.
Rochester has quite a few qualities similar to that of a Byronic hero, but at the same time he lacks the characteristics that would be overstated or obvious to everyone. Rochester isn’t necessarily isolated from society. He travels for business reasons, he has social gatherings, and he attends social gatherings. However, there was a small section earlier in the book (around the time where we met Mr. Mason) that mentions that Mr. Rochester travelled throughout Europe for a short time. His “isolation” was voluntary and, to some extent, enjoyable. We know that he found Adele after a supposed affair with his mistress Celine, and that he met Mr. Mason abroad.
His personality isn’t exactly welcoming and generous—he’s gruff, crude and often short or terse with Jane. He’s passionate about very few things, one of them being Jane herself. While he’s rude to her, he takes into consideration her desires and he tries to accommodate them. He’s willing to go beyond his own comfort zone (allowing her to leave Thornfield to visit Mrs. Reed), and he expresses an interest in most things she says because he believes that she is intelligent to have a one on one conversation with him. This brings me to the next characteristic of the Byronic hero: superior intelligence. Mr. Rochester is very intelligent, often stating his surprise when Jane is able to keep up with him. Jane herself notices his intelligence and judges the females at the party as inferior because they aren’t as smart. Rochester isn’t narcissistic (he never obsesses or gloats concerning himself), but he is aware of his himself. In other words, he is self-conscious. He is aware of his looks and the way people view him as “ugly,” but beyond that, he is very aware that the only reason women like Blanche want to marry him is because he is supposedly wealthy.
There’s no avoiding this next point—his rejection of the morals and values of society. Even now, it’s probably not the best idea to attempt to marry a woman when you already have a wife. Things like divorce would have been considered anathema at this point, so the only thing he could do was ignore his wife’s existence and attempt to marry Jane. He is separating himself from his class by having a relationship with Jane, but in retrospect, what’s worse than leaving your crazy, animalistic wife in the attic? As we’ve all mentioned at some point, Mr. Rochester knows he is marrying below himself by choosing Jane; in fact he states: “‘You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband’” (Brontë 257). Later he repeats his disinterest of class order: “‘Station! Station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.—Go” (266). He has no concern over the values of the society he lives in, which could mark him as egotistical or at the very least, a man who believes he is above the rest. As far as being repulsive, I’ve said it before; people call him ugly because he doesn’t fit into that arch-type beauty mold of the 1800s. He is fascinating to the people he meets due to his natural charisma, his wealth, manor, and his love for Adele.
Jane’s character is an interesting mix of independence and the understanding of her role in society. She’s in love with Rochester, more specifically the passion he has for the people in his life and the way he dedicates himself to Jane. Unfortunately, she is more than aware of their differences in class, and she is uncomfortable accepting the expensive gifts he bestows upon her: “…the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation” (271). When Jane wrote the letter to her uncle, it was because she wanted to appear wealthier to Rochester and anyone else who would look down upon her. She didn’t want to look like she had to depend upon his wealth. Her independence wouldn’t allow it, and her understanding of class structure made her uncomfortable with their differences in class.

Destiny Desroche

1/16/2012 02:44:06 am

Sorry about the paragraphs guys. I typed this in Word, so I forgot to add the extra space between paragraphs. You get to suffer now. Enjoy. ^.^

Laura Pulito

1/16/2012 04:08:02 am

Destiny- So I am wondering how you feel about Mr. Rochester locking up his crazy wife--like, morally. This is only because you mentioned it and I had been wondering what to think of it because it kind of says a lot about Mr. Rochester. I mean, he could be doing her a favor, or he could be ruining her life but it's hard to tell. I know that back then people were treated like animals in insane asylums but being locked in the attic can't be much better. Wouldn't that make her more mad then she already was? I am going to guess that Mr. Rochester thinks he is doing the right thing, but I don't know enough about the circumstances of the time period to judge.

Destiny Desroche

1/16/2012 04:40:22 am

Well, I'm not an expert by any means. I love the period, so I know a few things. If you want my personal opinion, I feel that he did one of the only things he could do. If he advertised that his wife was crazy it would probably reflect poorly on him. As the husband, his job would have been to protect and take care of his wife, so people would look at him like it was partially his fault. He had two options: take her to an asylum or lock her up and keep her a secret so that he could live a semi-normal life. I suppose he could have killed her too, but that's a different topic for another time. By putting her in an asylum, people would have found out. They would make that connection and he would be even more of a pariah than before. It doesn't help that the people in this community at this time appear to be extremely religious and schizophrenia or animalistic behavior would look like possession or demonic interference (probably Brontë’s point). It might be schizophrenia considering Mr. Rochester's response to his audience: "Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family..." (295). We know that schizophrenia is genetically inherited. We have no way of knowing how long she was insane or how bad her condition was before she was locked in the attic, so at this point, we can’t say whether or not it made her condition worse. If she was already as bad as Jane tells us, then it wouldn’t matter if he put his wife in an asylum or if he kept her in the attic. It’s hard to judge Mr. Rochester in a positive or negative light without knowing how bad she was before.

Jenny Jeffrey

1/16/2012 08:10:21 am

Destiny...did you just say it was okay for him to lock a mad woman away because he wanted to? Um, somehow, I don't think that's exactly moral. It's understandable for his character, I suppose -- especially if he fits the archetype of the Byronic hero, a man who feels that he is more intelligent than everyone else (which perhaps grants him special rights). He says that, in the past, he expected a potential wife to hear his story and totally understand why he hid his first wife away...yet he doesn't tell Jane. Rochester knows what he's done is wrong! He just prefers having done it to living with the restrictions that public knowledge of his first wife would impose on him!

"We have no way of knowing how long she was insane or how bad her condition was before she was locked in the attic, so at this point, we can’t say whether or not it made her condition worse. If she was already as bad as Jane tells us, then it wouldn’t matter if he put his wife in an asylum or if he kept her in the attic."

Honestly, hiring Grace Poole for full-time care seems kinder than giving his wife to one of the asylums of the period, but the issue seems to be more with the keeping-a-secret-wife-locked-in-a-little-room-of-your-mansion-and-courting-women-without-exactly-mentioning-her-existence aspect of his actions. /Maybe/ he's doing the right thing for her care, but he's still confining her to one room, putting other people at risk -- she could have killed Jane and tried to kill Mason -- and lying to the world about her presence.

Ms. Draper

1/16/2012 09:16:41 pm

"I suppose he could have killed her, too."

Thus confirming my repeated findings that I have the most bloodthirsty English classes ever.

No, but on a serious note, I do think we have to take into account the dark side of the Byronic hero. His attractive qualities are very powerful, but there's no doubt that moral lapses exist and some of these--notably the list of mistresses he reveals--repel Jane, as they should. He is dangerous, and that is part of his attraction (even if he considers himself reformed).

Destiny Desroche

1/16/2012 04:52:15 am

Ms. Draper, I have a question. What time zone do you have this page set to? My responses are off by three hours...I don't care, but it's weird.

Jenny, lurking before I actually write my post

1/16/2012 06:29:36 am

California.

Laura Pulito

1/16/2012 05:08:47 am

Mr. Rochester makes a very nice Byronic hero for a variety of reasons. First of all, he has severe mood swings and if her were alive today he might be considered bipolar. His character is often very "dark" while at other times he is quite animated. He displays both of these sides in Jane's company and is therefore rather temperamental--which should confuse and bother Jane. She is certainly confused, especially when he seems to court Blanche and basically rub it in her face. She is sometimes (probably not often enough) irritated by his abrupt mood swings. However, as she comes to understand his self-torment she respects his ever-changing attitudes and I believe that she pities him, and this leads to a deeper attraction. Perhaps his struggles make him seem more human (instead of just an unfeeling rich man) and more of her equal.

Mr. Rochester and Jane have much more in common than it may appear at first. As a "rebel", Mr. Rochester is similar to Jane. Jane, at times, rebels against society, but feels restrained by her social expectations. Of course, Mr. Rochester's social expectations are vastly different from Jane's, but he often disregards them with difficulty. For example, marrying a women of a lower social class shows that his desires defeat what is expected of him. Jane is passionate, and so is Mr. Rochester.

Rochester's passion is the cause of his pride, it seems. For example, he can love Jane with all his heart and nobody can really do anything about it (except forbid them to marry because one minor impediment). Still, he can love her all he wants and nothing can stop him. "'I would not--I could not--marry Miss Ingram. You--you strange--you almost unearthly thing!--I love you as my own flesh. You--poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are--I entreat you to accept me as a husband'" (Bronte 257). After Ms. Fairfax sees them smooching in the hall, there is nothing she can do or say because Mr. Rochester is her master--he will always be above her in every way possible, as he is with the rest of Thornfield. He is an intelligent, passionate, and skilled man who should be able to get whatever he wants. However, his extreme passion and inner torment are the perfect recipe for complete self-destruction and dub him as a type of romantic hero. After he loses Jane, what is he to do? His soul will become all the more tortured.

Megan

1/16/2012 10:56:57 am

Laura, first of all...smooching hahaha :)

And second, I like what you said here..."However, as she comes to understand his self-torment she respects his ever-changing attitudes and I believe that she pities him, and this leads to a deeper attraction. Perhaps his struggles make him seem more human (instead of just an unfeeling rich man) and more of her equal."

I agree with this 100%. Jane was always kinda freaked out about equality, which actual was one of the only things stopping her from admitting her true love for Mr. Rochester. However his flaws basically lowered his status, making him more human in her eyes. And it almost seemed like when she learned about his dark past she was even more sympathetic and attracted to him, but at the same time made her realize she couldn't stay. Which probably shouldn't make any sense... but I guess she knows it's really wrong for her to stick around and just be the mistress of someone married to someone he locks in the attic.

Puni

1/16/2012 12:35:52 pm

Yes! I totally agreed that he is bipolar. I also feel that though they have attributes that are very different to each other, they can be very similar. I really like that quote you picked, it was almost child-like when he says that. I feel like he can be strong and intelligent and independent but on the other hand, he could also be very immature and childish. Sometimes it's like Jane has to look out for him too because he is craving attention so much.
This book also reminds me of Jane Austen's book sometimes, with the theme of pride, the strong female protagonist and the tortured mysterious man, whom she eventually falls in love with, of course.
Why do you think it's an act of rebellion? I feel like Mr. Rochester is like a kid that wants candy. And he wants what he wants and he need to get it, it doesn't matter who he hurts (Ms. Ingram). Personally, I feel like he can be so cruel and selfish!

Jenny Jeffrey link

1/16/2012 07:57:01 am

(I’m not sure how you want us to cite the links you give, so the quote without a name or page number is from the Byronic hero page. Also, Twilight sucks. If everyone could just avoid mentioning it in the same breath as classic literature, that would be great.)

Well—as everyone’s nicely covered—Mr. Rochester definitely fits the Byronic hero profile. He’s dark! He broods! He’s smarter than everyone! etc. Bronte makes ample mention of his wanderings and portrays him as the “figure of repulsion, as well as fascination” by giving the readers no doubt that every character finds him somewhat mysterious (and, unusually for a hero, ugly). Rochester seems to wear the Byronic hero role as a badge of honor, telling Jane of his search at length for a woman of equal intellect and of his disdain for everyone else. Of course, he also has his deep, dark secret: the hidden wife that makes him an absolute Byronic hero.

Jane’s attraction to Rochester is based on many of these Byronic traits—but so is her flight. She appreciates that Rochester is independent, mostly because she has never really encountered an authority figure who would entertain the idea that Jane was their equal for any amount of time. (Of course, even in their more casual conversations, Rochester didn’t /really/ treat Jane as his equal—ordering her to play the piano or share her drawings—but he was the person to finally recognize her strong personality as something other than a nuisance.) She likes the idea of a wanderer, feeling that travel makes Rochester worldly and educated rather than somehow tainted by foreign places (as Mason apparently was). She can also recognize herself in his passion and intelligence, and she appreciates these characteristics in anyone—but the same aspects of Rochester’s character that make him appealing to Jane also push her over the edge. Jane is a judgmental person, and she can’t bear Rochester’s attitude toward his wife. “It is cruel—she cannot help being mad,” she protests (Bronte 303). She’s also offended by his arrogance, especially since he expects their relationship to continue after the big reveal: “I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion [of a bright future],” Jane says (Bronte 317). He’s still in love, but she is in shock—and, even after the shock wears off, Jane will have an entirely different opinion of Rochester. She might appreciate some strength of character and a hint of darkness, but an all-out secret, mad wife is too much for Jane.

Destiny Desroche

1/16/2012 08:19:22 am

I have to address something before I respond to your post. When I replied to Laura, I wasn't replying with my modern perspective. I gave my opinion based on the era.

"Destiny...did you just say it was okay for him to lock a mad woman away because he wanted to? Um, somehow, I don't think that's exactly moral."

Personally, no, I don't think it's okay for him to lock his wife in a dark attic. I don't think it's moral or just. I think he preferred it to the alternative which would put him in a negative light. He didn't want to (as far as we know). He preferred it. That's it. I swear...you just have to complain about everything I say. Can't you just let me have a day without a complaint? Nope. Probably not.

I agree with your paragraph concerning Jane's flight. I don't think anyone really covered it, so it's nice to see that you actually followed the assignment.

Jenny Jeffrey

1/16/2012 08:55:54 am

Ri-ight, you never said ~anything~ about it as a moral decision. Except for that one thing.

"It’s hard to judge Mr. Rochester in a positive or negative light without knowing how bad she was before."

UGH, DESTINY. UGH, WHY?

I will complain if I want, thanks. And, yes, definitely shame on everyone for forgetting the prompt. There will be much huffing and judgmental glaring for all.

(I'm going to go ahead and not make this a paragraph, since I've already done my reply--and since most of what I had to reply to was unsubstantiated personal attacks! Most! Definitely lots! At least a bit.)

Laura Pulito

1/16/2012 09:49:58 am

*****I'm such a good instigator.

Megan

1/16/2012 08:55:48 am

Mr. Rochester is in many senses a Byronic Hero. He is a complex character, not an everyday hero. Mr. Rochester takes on a very mysterious character that isn’t handsome and is often rude and moody. He is unkind to Jane and others associated with him. "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her”(Bronte 123). His thoughts are often impatient and abrupt. He teases Jane, speaking of marrying Blanche and then pretending that he wishes her to leave, when all he really wants to do is marry her.
Mr. Rochester also suffers from a dark and troubled past. His dark secret of Bertha creates the flawed character that he has become. Being tricked into marrying someone he didn’t know or love led him to an imperfect life. And because she is insane he is very much tied down by this marriage. He doesn’t want to follow the common ways of society either. For not only does he have this insane wife, but he locks her away and tries to marry someone else. And he chooses to marry Jane, someone of lower status, without money, and isn’t extremely attractive. Because he is so apt to deny the society he is also not very social.
In my mind Jane is pushed away from Mr. Rochester because she knows what he did was wrong. She is very much in love with him, but because he tried to marry her while his wife was still alive she knows she must leave. She knows that while Bertha is still alive she can really on be his mistress. She is attracted to the love he has for her and the misery that he has endured. She feels bad for the hardships he must overcome daily. “I forgave him at the moment, and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner”(Bronte 301). Jane wants to forgive Mr. Rochester because he was the first man to love her and she was still in love, but she overcomes temptation to stay and leaves.

Nate McCann

1/16/2012 12:17:30 pm

I appreciate your well-worded and insightful post. I agree with you on the last part regarding Jane's emotional dilemma. I also had sympathy for Jane during that part of the story, as it was clearly a very difficult decision for her to make. The decision was hard for Jane due to her understanding that Mr. Rochester was not in this situation of his own choice. However, she didn't agree with the way that Mr. Rochester handled his circumstances. I agree with Jane's decision to leave him.

Puni

1/16/2012 10:51:32 am

Mr. Rochester, as we all know, is not your average prince charming. His features are bold and striking (but not at all glittery when in sunlight…) and his age is rather tall but the one thing that lures Jane in is the mysterious aura that lingers around him. He is somewhat bi-polar, whimsical and quaint (and slightly ADD) at one point and extremely emotional, burdened by something that is unbeknownst to Jane and this constant search for some sort of redemption at other points. It’s this “damaged goods”, “bad boy” quality that reels Jane in, the qualities presented in most Byronic heroes. Mr. Rochester’s search for salvation is perfectly paired with the “I can change him!” paradigm of Jane Eyre and results in a complex attraction that she can somehow nurse him out of his mood swings. We must not forget that Jane, at a very early age, has also been reaching out for God and salvation, after what she’s been through with Helen and Lowood, she seems as if she could provide an answer to Mr. Rochester’s calling. After the Mr. Mason incident at Thornfield, Mr. Rochester asks her if by marrying to Ms. Ingram he would achieve his redemption, Jane answers:

“A wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Man and women die; philosophers falters in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend, and solace to heal.” (221)

I feel like this is the passage when they both fully open up to each other.

The fact that she eventually finds out about Bertha, Mr. Rochester’s locked up wife in the attic, probably contributes the most to her fleet. It’s the one radical kick that crossed the line a little about the “Byronic hero” characteristic for Jane. Of course, she still loves him but the fact that he did lock her up was somewhat threatening. Of course she forgives him still.

My question is, does locking Bertha up contribute to her insanity? It sounded like it was a gene thing but, I don’t know, I felt bad for her. I thought Mr. Rochester was pretty cruel on that part.

Casey Rosenberg

1/16/2012 01:55:57 pm

My personal feeling is that, yes, it was cruel for Rochester to lock Bertha away, but if you reexamine that from the point of view of the era, you'll see that putting her in an asylum would have been even worse.

I mean, the decision to keep her secretly locked up at home is a selfish one, but not unheard of in that time. Upperclass families would often just hide relatives suffering from insanity so as to not put a black mark on the family's name by having them institutionalized. That could have been some of Rochester's motivation for not committing her, saving the family name.

Asylums in those days were terrible. Patients were mistreated, used for medical experiments, think of the worst, most-creepy, disgusting, immoral thing and it probably happened a dozen times before breakfast in those places.
Frankly, the idea of asylums still scares me, even the nice, modern ones.

Rochester is curious. He keeps his guilt and past failures close, in both Bertha and Adele, thus tormenting himself in the fashion of a true Byronic Hero.

Casey Rosenberg

1/16/2012 01:46:16 pm

Rochester fits the archetype of the Byronic Hero to the letter. Bronte outright describes him as "dark" and "eccentric." We have seen that he's not a hero and he is prone to deceive those around him--also he's hiding something.

I don't agree with you, though, Nate. Victorian Gentleman could travel--that's not rejecting the rules of society. The way Rochester rejected the rules of society was in the fact that he was "not married," was about to marry the lower-class governess, and then tried to take a second wife because he was really married all along.
That stuff went quite a bit against the accepted rules of society.
I agree: he completely disregards those rules, preferring to "exile" himself in a Byronic fashion, and isolate himself in his guilt. We are at first lead to assume that his guilt was something that may have happened abroad, what with him being so well-traveled (or at least I was), but we never suspect that his guilt lies in his keeping a batty-insane, homicidal, secret Jamaican-Wife locked up in the house.

So turns out Grace Poole wasn't a werewolf. I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed.

Anyway, we've established that Rochester is a painfully-obvious, tormented Byronic Hero, and many of these qualities are attractive to Jane; but the way I see it, they are mutually attracted to each other. They are both strong-willed and stubborn to a fault, but they both harbor secret desires to be controlled by the other--to have their personalities dominated.
Appearances don't really matter in their attraction, which is why Jane is so adamant in not wanting the jewels, saying: "I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket,--a jay in borrowed plumes" (Bronte 261).
Rochester is attracted to Jane's character, that "bends but does not break." He says that she "masters" him, he is "influenced" and "conquered," and the more Jane pushes his affections away, the more he is attracted to her.
Jane, in turn, is attracted to Rochester's mystery, the challenge of unraveling his secrets. What breaks her attraction to him is the horror of his secret, or perhaps not even that--it is more that he went about so nonchalantly while Bertha was locked away. This feeds, I think, into something that Jane mentioned earlier:
"'When you get well-used to me, you will perhaps like me again,--like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's ardour extends" (262).
Perhaps Jane fears that this could happen to her, and that is something she cannot shake from her mind, driving her to leave Rochester.

But that's just what I observed.

On a slightly unrelated note: "the attraction of the Byronic hero is that he is beautiful but damned..." is this where you got the Twilight example? Damned = vampire? Really?
Ms. Draper, I feel insulted. I could count off quite a few examples of Byronic Heroes without having to stoop to that level. Tsk tsk.

Shaken AND stirred.

1/16/2012 03:30:10 pm

You're right; this is definitely a relationship with two people constantly wearing the pants, which provides the chemistry that both Jane and Rochester have lacked in their interactions with other people. I don't know if she loses attraction for him, though. She worries that she may become despised like one of his other mistresses and her morals prevent her from being part of an extra-marital relationship, but she loves him right up to the end. This is another case of Jane acting logically and cooly rather than letting her emotions take over, I think.

Fulton. David Fulton.

1/16/2012 03:23:00 pm

I've said it before: I want this man's angsty angsty babies.

Rochester is clearly is modeled after Byron's dark and morally ambiguous heroes. However, I wouldn't go so far as some have in saying that he fits the archetype perfectly. He is a far cry from the Satan in Paradise Lost, for example. He is more human and exposed than might be expected from an absolutely Byronic character. After his wife is discovered and he has a chapter long dialogue with Jane, he confesses to several mistresses, and clearly sees himself beholden to a code of ethics, saying "I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of existence; I should never like to return to it" (330). Rochester here drops the Byronic veil and reveals his true vulnerability to us. Even this scene can be perceived as in line with Byronian character's sensitivity, but Rochester here loses much of his characteristic mystique.

That said, Rochester is pretty conflicted. The crazy wife locked up in the attic was unsuspected and perfect. It gives him a true moral quandary and justifies all of his angst. It underlines his former mistakes and conflicts, and is a focal point for all his vices and virtues. He tolerated her for years, but never loved her; contemplated suicide, but discarded it as insanity; and almost became a bigamist out of love.

Angsty, angsty babies, people. Angsty, angsty babies.

Byronic Hero: Bad News for the Ladies?

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