Abstract of article and why it matters
Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester are Beauty and the Beast, but with a brilliant Charlotte Brontë twist.
Jane Eyre’s setup is a brilliant twist on a fairy tale that makes it impossible to have a happily ever after. Fairy tales are often very simplistic because they tell us simple truths. Putting a twist in the tale helps us understand that truth in a more nuanced way.
Introduction
This is an article on the classic Jane Eyre and focuses on Jane Eyre’s relationship with Edward Rochester. The subtitle of this article is Beauty and the Beast (B&B) because I want to compare the two stories. The connection is rather obvious, isn’t it?
It looks like a fairy tale
Rochester is a brooding, dark character like the Beast/ Prince Adam. And Jane Eyre, like Beauty/ Belle, is the heroine, untarnished by cynicism. But B&B is simplistic. The Beast is unkind as a matter of default and Belle is kind as a matter of default. When the Beast comes to know Belle, he begins to soften as he sees that he would be better off being kind. Belle warms up to the Beast because she sees him becoming a better man.
Of all the fairy tales, B&B is the one I find most relatable. Instead of the prince and princess falling in love for no specific reason, B&B shows that they fall in love as they understand the other person’s character and virtues.
It looks even better than a fairy tale
Charlotte Brontë dramatically improves on the B&B story by introducing a common theme to the backstory of the two characters – their reaction to a difficult past. Rochester was not unkind as a young man. He was cheated by his own family and his life ruined for their petty motives. He becomes a dark character because he is caught in a never-ending nightmare. In contrast, Jane retains a positive attitude towards life despite a difficult past.
It is also important to the story that they are both intellectuals. That is the connection on which their relationship finds its first foundation.
Over time, Rochester falls in love with Jane, who is the best version of himself. She is a person who suffered a bad fate and came out on top. For her part, Jane falls in love with Rochester because he is, paradoxically, kinder to her than anyone else she has come across because he views her as an equal. While I don’t want to mix fairy tales here, in this narrow context, for Jane, he is the Prince Charming who rescued Cinderella from an evil stepfamily.
Rochester falls in love with Jane, who is the best version of himself.
But it’s not a fairy tale
The original ending
However, B&B and Jane Eyre stop being parallels at this point. Once the two characters are in love, the two stories veer because of the nature of the conflict involved in the story.
In B&B, the Beast loves Belle but is afraid that she doesn’t love him. Then, in the tradition of all fairy tales, there is the villain Gaston who tries to stand in the way. But Belle loathes Gaston and when Gaston injures the Beast, Belle becomes painfully aware of her love for the Beast. After the Beast defeats Gaston, Belle confesses her love and Belle and Adam live happily ever after.
To put it into other words, the conflict in the love story comes from an external entity who stands between the two characters.
A twist in the tale
Brontë adds brilliant new twists to this original story template. Rochester, like the Beast, loves Jane and worries that she doesn’t love him. Unfortunately for Rochester, there are three villains in his story.
- The first, is Blanche Ingram, the lady to whom Rochester pretends to be engaged in order to get Jane to confess her love for him. Ingram fulfills the same role as Gaston in getting the leading lady to realize her feelings for the leading man and luckily for Rochester, Jane loathes Ingram just like Belle loathes Gaston.
- The second, is Bertha Mason, Rochester’s secret wife. She is, however, not someone Jane can loathe. Instead, Bertha is someone that could very well cause Jane to loathe Rochester himself because he has not told Jane about his secret wife.
- The final, is Rochester himself. Yes, he has a wife that he cannot divorce even though he wishes to have nothing to do with her. But that is a minor part of the conflict. The primary conflict is the internal conflict of Rochester. His marriage to Bertha, accomplished by his family and friends through deception and his subsequent inability to find anyone worthy of his love have tarnished his outlook on life. When he meets Jane, he decides it is alright for him to perpetrate a deception on the world in return for what he has suffered. Unlike the Beast who lets Belle go even when he thinks she won’t return, Rochester is unwilling to let Jane go by telling her the truth because he knows she won’t return.
Unfortunately for Rochester, there are three villains in his story.
An updated ending
As a villain himself, Rochester reaches a place in his conflict where he is willing to snatch whatever he needs without consideration for Jane. He will “marry” her even though he already has a wife. He decides it doesn’t matter to him because he is simply “overleaping an obstacle of custom – a mere conventional impediment which neither (my) conscience sanctifies, nor (my) judgment approves.” This would be well and good if Jane saw marriage the same way. But she doesn’t and he knows it.
When Jane finds out, she retains enough self-belief to say that she will not live as Rochester’s mistress because “I care for myself”.
I find it poetic that Jane must leave Rochester precisely because she is the kind of person who won’t be defeated by circumstance. In fact, if she were to agree to live on as Rochester’s mistress, she would essentially be leaving behind her idealism. She would thus stop being the best version of Rochester and therefore become less worthy of love in Rochester’s eyes.
Jane must leave Rochester precisely because she is the kind of person who won’t be defeated by circumstance.
As the circumstances stand, no choice that the lead characters make can lead to a happily ever after.
Conclusion
By adding depth to the characters of Beauty and the Beast, Brontë shows that happily ever after may not be the necessary conclusion of true love. She makes us realize that happily ever after is affected by circumstances beyond our control.
Before we sign off, I must add that in the book, Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester do end up happily ever after. As discussed here, an artist’s axioms will shape the art created. Charlotte Brontë is too much of a romantic to let the book end here. But what happens in Jane Eyre for the two to reach their happily ever after is a discussion for another article.
References
- Wikipedia page for Jane Eyre
- Article exploring how assumptions shape art
- Article exploring the need for Deus ex machina
For comments or questions on this article, please email nayana@tobeandwhattobe.com
Article image courtesy: J. H. Thompson – Bronte Parsonage Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12840267
