Jane's Relationship with Rochester in Bronte's Jane Eyre

Jane's Relationship with Rochester in Bronte's Jane Eyre

Works Cited Not Included

Jane Eyre is one of the most famous and well-read romantic novels in

English literature. The novel has been translated into scores of

different languages and adapted many times for dramatised productions.

The relationship between Jane and Rochester is the central theme of

the novel. Charlotte Brontë makes use of a simple yet familiar story

line: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl are reunited after

some hardship and then live happily ever after. Jane Eyre contains

most of the classic features of a love story. For example, real or

imagined barriers between the two parties, misunderstandings, sudden

separations, warm reunions, shared dangers, jealousy and helping or

consoling the other party. Both Jane and Rochester are passionate

characters who have a great capacity to love. Neither Jane nor

Rochester is physically attractive but they both have strong

personalities.

A typical feature of a love story is the presence of apparently

insurmountable barriers between the man and the woman. Charlotte

Brontë makes use of this concept in Jane Eyre. For example, the

difference in wealth between Jane and Rochester poses a barrier, as

Jane is quite penniless when she arrives at Thornfield. We assume this

because when Jane is at Gateshead she is told by Bessie, "You ought to

be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs Reed: she keeps

you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the

poor-house" (Page 20). I...

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...ster to be

unduly insensitive to Jane, which is not what you would expect in a

romance. For example, on page 161 he says, "you never felt jealousy,

did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you

never felt love". A typical romance also usually contains an element

of glamour which is missing from this novel. Jane is not the glamorous

Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty figure of fairy stories but nor is she

the tragic drama figure of Mimi in La Bohémè.

I therefore conclude that in general Charlotte Brontë has kept to the

structure of a typical romance as she includes many of the main

elements of a love story. There are, however a few aspects which I

consider important features in a love story that have been omitted.

Nevertheless Jane Eyre is undoubtedly one of the best romantic novels

of all time.