We talked in class about whether which narrator we found more sympathetic.
Even though Rochester narrated a huge portion of the book, trying to portray himself as worthy of sympathy, I don’t sympathize with him very much at all. He has a lot more freedom to make his own choices than Antoinette does and with that freedom he ruins Antoinette’s life.
I wanted to examine Rochester’s past to see if it could help me understand the choices he makes any better.
Rochester certainly has a complicated relationship with his family. At the very beginning of part 2 as they are traveling to the honeymoon house he thinks about writing his father a letter: “I thought about the letter which should have been written to England a week ago. Dear Father…” (61). The fact that he can’t bring himself to write to his father suggests a strained relationship. When Rochester later mentally composes the letter, the bad feelings are even more clear: "Dear Father. The thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without question or condition. No provision made for her (that must be seen to). I have a modest competence now. I will never be a disgrace to you or to my dear brother the son you love. No begging letters, no mean requests. None of the furtive shabby manoeuvres of a younger son. I have sold my soul or you have sold it, and after all is it such a bad bargain?" (63-4). Rochester’s father loves Rochester’s brother significantly more than Rochester. It seems that this has deeply affected Rochester. He notes it in a resentful tone and has travelled across the ocean and married someone that he doesn’t want to marry to be less of a burden and a better son.
I think this could make Rochester worthier of sympathy. I could imagine that lacking any loving relationships with his family could mess up his ability to have a loving relationship with other people (including Antoinette). There’s a lot of potential for explaining why Rochester turned out the way he did. So it’s really frustrating that we don’t learn enough about this relationship to understand it.
Note: the page numbers are from my edition of the book (blue on the front)
I'm also in the anti-Rochester camp. And I think because him and Antoinette are both so messed up from hard childhoods (though I would argue Antoinette's was way harder) and their cultural divide, it becomes easier to see Rochester's possessiveness as a manifestation of his insecurity about his position in his family. I still don't like him, but nobody is only evil, and Antoinette does some pretty messed up things too.
ReplyDeleteIn this way, Rochester is kind of similar to Antoinette. Both aren't the favorite child and feel insecure due to their parents' rejection. Like how we are sympathetic for Antoinette, I think we can feel sympathetic for Rochester too. Like you said, his family issues could mess up his ability to have other relationships. It's not something I really took into consideration most of the time, but along with influences like English culture/law and colonialist ideologies, it makes sense that it'd affect him. How much, I'm not sure, but maybe it'd be okay to give Rochester the benefit of the doubt.
ReplyDeleteWe also get a glimpse of a sympathetic perspective toward Rochester at the very start of part 3, with the italicized narration that reflects Grace Poole's point of view. We learn that Mrs. Fairfax, the head housekeeper at Rochester's Thornfield Hall, who has known him since he "was a boy," claims that his sojourn in the West Indies has "transformed" him, that he's been visibly affected and changed forever from his experiences. The reader will likely sympathize even more with Antoinette (who has certainly been "transformed" by her forced removal to and confinement in England), but Rhys does try to remind us of how Rochester is depicted in _Jane Eyre_, and the idea that from the *British* perspective, Antoinette/Bertha is the one who has "undone" this sweet, innocent "boy."
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