Manipulating your way to happiness: The Rochester Doctrine

Jane Eyre Spoilers alert!

Last month, book club discussion focussed on Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's classic gothic romance telling the story of a young orphan girl who rises to be a governess. This week, I disagreed with the group on the subject of the romantic content of the book.


Jane Eyre and Rochester is one of the most satisfying romances that I've ever read in a novel. The age gap is immense, the 40 year old dates the teenager. Rochester is not attractive and neither is Jane. Jane is very intelligent, quick witted and a competent intellectual, Rochester is also endowed with mental prowess although has a darker past.

Jane's chief crime, although it is never really portrayed as a crime, is an outburst at her cruel adopted mother. Rochester screws his way round Europe after his wife goes crazy, cruelly manipulates Jane's emotions to love him and most of all, tries to fool Jane into marrying him when he is already married! Yet there is some Darcyness to the character, he sacrifices his vision and fitness to try to save his wife at the last and there is the underlying theme of love for Jane that isn't broken. Far more interesting and annoying is Jane's character. Haunted by a sense of inferiority, she seems to avoid anything approximating happiness until satisfying that Christian message that sneaks in, the "trust God and everything will be ok".

Yet, somehow through all of this, a consistent theme seems to be love. I always felt the Pride and Prejudice witty diatribe seemed a bit silly. The Darcy and Bennett characters are contrived and idealistic even with their weaknesses. The power games of Rochester seem to better approximate the age, with Jane Eyre still retaining and exercising her ability to choose.

In 1966, R.B. Martin called Jane Eyre "the first major feminist novel".

"Only equals like Jane and Rochester dare to speak truth couched in language of unadorned directness."

Nowhere in the novel is change promoted or expected. The woman's place in the world is accepted. Eyre in fact does not appear overly surprised by Rochester's betrayal, scarcely believing that such a man would deign to shower her with affections. It is only when he is emasculated that she accepts him, where he ceases to have power. Yet it is in this subtle and seemingly submissive attitude that the novel betrays its feminist fervour. Eyre is the one who pursues power, she wishes to make her life mean more than the blueprint of the age. She does not want to accept her position but at the same time, she knows that to rebel too openly is to lose everything. Instead the silliness of the God aspect allows Jane to take her own path. And that path is love.

Ah.