The novel Jane Eyre is a Victorian Gothic bildungsroman that explores the early life of the eponymous character. At eighteen Jane is hired by Mr. Rochester as a governess at Thornfield Hall. This essay will argue that Jane’s innocent, independent personality liberates Mr. Rochester from his mental enslavement at Thornfield Hall. Jane provides a glimpse to a free spirit Mr. Rochester has lost, but he is dishonest and lacks the repentance it requires. Eventually, Mr. Rochester’s past is revealed, so Jane leaves to protect her honor and condemns Mr. Rochester to despair. But Mr. Rochester is freed by Bertha’s burning of Thornfield Hall and suicide, along with his selfless sacrifice, while Jane’s return cements his freedom.

Jane shows Mr. Rochester an independence that he is not ready for. Jane first meets him outside Thornfield Hall riding his horse. Mr. Rochester and his horse slip “on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway.” Jane offers to help him, but he refuses her help at first, saying he only has a sprain. Jane says she cannot think of leaving him, “at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.” Mr. Rochester does not reveal to Jane his real identity, and surmises that she is the governess of Thornfield. After the horse resists Jane’s attempts to bring it to him, Mr. Rochester leans on Jane so he can get to his horse. Jane feels proud of having helped Mr. Rochester, because “transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive” (Bronte vol. i, ch. xii). Jane’s first encounter with Mr. Rochester is a metaphor and foreshadowing of their relationship for the rest of the book. Mr. Rochester’s sprain represents his regrets which keep him down, and the ice symbolizes his tormented, injured past. Mr. Rochester’s refusal of Jane’s help represents his resistance to repentance despite Jane’s recommendations, and his secrecy is a metaphor for how he hides his past. Jane helping him to his horse foreshadows how she will save him. Jane has become a companion to Mr., Rochester.

When talking to Jane, Mr. Rochester shares his regrets to her. He insists that “rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner”. He wonders “where is the use of thinking of [repentance], hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life, and I will get it, cost what it may”. Jane replies that “you will degenerate still more, sir” (Bronte vol. i, ch. xiv). Mr. Rochester is conflicted: he has some desire to repent but lacks the courage and character to do so. He feels that it is pointless. He also has a grudge and feels he is owed pleasure for what he has gone through, which he thinks he is blameless for. But Jane warns him that hedonism will only morally degrade him. Mr. Rochester tells Jane: “I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and the Persians, that both are right”. Jane replies that “the human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted” (Bronte vol i, ch. xiv). Mr. Rochester takes onto himself the divine authority of judging his own actions. Jane replaces Mr. Rochester’s certainty with a hope, supplication and prayer (Wright Lec 3). Mr. Rochester displays a hubris and arrogance. Jane is humbler, warning Rochester against his path. It is too painful for Mr. Rochester to confront his past and repent, so he prefers to live in the moment.

Mr. Rochester, after much toying with Jane, eventually reveals his love for her, but his dark past separates them. Mr. Rochester flirts with Blanche Ingram and Jane surmises that they will marry. In a midsummer evening, Jane and Mr. Rochester speak in the orchard. Mr. Rochester tells Jane that his connection with her is like having “a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame” (Bronte vol. ii, ch. viii). Mr. Rochester is hinting at his love for Jane by alluding to the Garden of Eden Story in the Bible, where God makes Eve from Adam’s rib (Bronte notes). Mr. Rochester proposes to Jane, who accepts him (Bronte vol. ii, ch. viii). Mr. Rochester has finally found someone he can love and relate to after many years of traveling and having relationships with other women. However, “the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away” (Bronte vol. ii, ch. viii). Jane also sees Bertha Mason put her veil on before tearing it and extinguishing her candle (Bronte vol. ii, ch. x). This foreshadows Jane and Mr. Rochester’s separation. The lightning strike shows its inevitability. Bertha wearing the veil signifies how she is already married to him and will extinguish Jane and Mr. Rochester’s joy like the candlelight.

During the marriage ceremony between Jane and Mr. Rochester one month later, Mr. Briggs intrudes and reveals that Mr. Rochester is already married to Bertha Mason. Mr. Rochester furiously tries to deny it, but eventually admits it. As a result, Jane feels like “a white December storm had whirled over June […] lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, today were pathless with untrodden snow”. To Jane “the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his [Mr. Rochester’s] idea” (Bronte vol. ii, ch. xi). Jane’s innocent view of Rochester has been shattered: the metaphor of a winter storm in June shows how unexpected and unnatural this seems to her. It has ruined her summer. Mr. Rochester pleads with Jane to accompany him to his villa in the south of France. However, Jane refuses, telling him: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Bronte vol. iii, ch. i). Jane chooses to leave Thornfield Hall because she wants to keep her integrity, conscience, and self-respect. She does not want to be a mistress to Mr. Rochester, which she would effectively be if she stayed with him, despite his insistence otherwise. Jane would feel imprisoned like Mr. Rochester. She is willing to sacrifice her happiness to preserve her honor. But in that process, she is condemning Rochester to stay in Thornfield Hall. Mr. Rochester saw Jane as his only hope to happiness. That hope now appears lost, so Mr. Rochester wallows in sadness.

Jane and Mr. Rochester can only return together when Mr. Rochester is freed from his captivity at Thornfield Hall. When Mr. Rochester can’t find Jane, he sends everyone away from Thornfield Hall, “and shut himself up, like a hermit, at the Hall”. Jane finds out from an innkeeper that the Hall “was burnt down just about harvest time – at dead of night”. Bertha had gone to the roof and jumped to her death. The innkeeper describes Bertha as “dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered”. He says that Mr. Rochester is now “stone-blind”. The use of the word “stone” in both sentences implies that Rochester is dead in a way like his wife. The innkeeper says that his “courage” and “kindness” had caused him to become blind and lose his hand, as “he wouldn’t leave the house till everyone else was out before him” (Bronte vol. iii, ch. xi). Mr. Rochester sacrificed himself for everyone else in the house. He was even willing to save his wife. His wife also sacrificed herself by burning the house and committing suicide. Nighttime is a fitting period for this, because of it’s dark, spooky connotations. Autumn is known for Halloween, a celebration of death. Autumn is also the season of harvests when vegetation dies, which naturally must happen before it regrows in spring.

In the same way Jane must metaphorically resurrect Mr. Rochester. Jane goes to Ferndean Hall in the beginning of June, at the very end of spring, when nature is blooming. There, Jane meets the blind Mr. Rochester. He at first does not believe it’s her, before she kisses him in the eyes and face. Jane compares Mr. Rochester to “a lamp quenched, waiting to be relit – and alas! It was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was dependent on another for that office”. Jane is Mr. Rochester’s lamp. Mr. Rochester compares himself to “the old, lightning-struck chestnut tree in Thornfield orchard”. But Jane replies that he is “green and vigorous” and that “plants will grow about your roots”  (Bronte vol. iii, ch. xi). This is a fitting spring metaphor: just as barren trees regrow leaves in spring, Mr. Rochester will regrow his life. Jane and Mr. Rochester marry in a quiet ceremony. Mr. Rochester regains his sight in one eye two years into the marriage with the help of an oculist (Bronte vol. iii, ch. xii). This is a metaphor for the life and joy that Jane brings back into Mr. Rochester. She cements Mr. Rochester’s freedom. Jane’s return can also be seen as a reward for Mr. Rochester due to his noble sacrifice at Thornfield. Thornfield had to be burned down, and Jane had to return before Mr. Rochester could be freed from the shackles of his past.

Jane Eyre’s innocent, independent personality frees Mr. Rochester from his haunted past. Jane shows Mr. Rochester that he can repent, but Mr. Rochester initially refuses. Mr. Rochester’s past catches up to him, leading Jane to leave Thornfield to remain untainted. But Mr. Rochester is freed by Bertha’s burning of Thornfield Hall and suicide along with his altruistic sacrifice, and Jane’s return cements his happiness. Mr. Rochester’ s story is a traditional Christian narrative of redemption where Mr. Rochester is a sinner who must go on a journey of repentance to purge himself of his past. This is in line with Charlotte Bronte’s Christian background which heavily informed her work: her father was an Anglican clergyman.

Works Cited

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1847.

Wright, Daniel. “Jane Eyre Lecture 3.” Mississauga: ENG325 The Victorian Novel at University of Toronto-Mississauga, 31 January 2024. Lecture.