Yes Jane Should Have Married Rochester:

Just found Hugh Grant’s Reddit AMA from 2014, featuring such gems as “I love to kill” and “I will pour almost anything down my throat”

Source: Hugh Grant Reddit AMA

Can’t believe Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 2000s

And in 2015 Emily Brontë released literary clsssic Wuthering Heights

Thank God someone paved the way for them…

So another interesting thing about Jane Eyre is its take on relationship inequality.

Like, Jane is 18 at the beginning of the story and Rochester is said to be something like 35-38. And it's not casually brushed aside like that was normal back in the day. It wasn't. Concerns about the age gap are raised within the text. But the story emphasizes that Jane feels comfortable accepting Rochester's proposal, despite the age difference, the class difference, and him being her boss, because Jane feels that Rochester regards her as an equal. When they converse, Jane doesn't feel any tension, like she has to impress him or try to read his mind and say whatever he wants to hear. She feels that he respects her and values her thoughts and isn't compelled to use his power against her if she says something to displease him. Around the midpoint of the story, Jane believes that Rochester is going to marry another woman, and resolves to leave because she's heartbroken, believing that because she is poor and plain Rochester can't possibly be as hurt by their parting as she is, and he'll forget her and move on long before she does. But it turns out to be the opposite. After finding out about Bertha, Rochester begs Jane to stay and insists he'll be miserable forever without her, while Jane, still thinking she's too poor and plain to ever attract someone like him again, resists all temptation and leaves him. And she does this specifically because she feels that if she were to compromise her morals and self-respect to be Mr. Rochester's mistress, then he would lose respect for her and the relationship would fall apart. It was only by maintaining her integrity that the relationship could stay in-tact when the reconciled at the end.

St. John Rivers on the other hand, I don't think is given a definite age, but I think he's intended to be a much younger man, probably in his early 20s. He is poor and without relations aside from his sisters or any other connections, just as Jane. Jane finds out they're actually cousins at the same time she learns she's come into a vast fortune that was willed to her rather than the Rivers, but decides to share her fortune equally with them. So she arguably had more social capital, even though she made an effort to put St. John on equal footing with her, because the money was hers by right and she could've presumably cut him off at any time, just as easily as Rochester could've terminated Jane from her job.

And yet, Jane's relationship with St. John is vastly more unequal than her relationship with Rochester. Even though Jane practically worshiped Rochester but only cares for St. John as a brother and is acutely aware of his faults, she still finds herself desperately craving his approval in a way she never did with Rochester. And St. John is willing to exploit that intentionally. He asks her to do things she doesn't want to and make sacrifices for him just because he knows she'll do anything to please him, and that's why he thinks she's the perfect wife for him. Where Rochester tries to explain himself and persuade Jane not to leave him by addressing her concerns, St. John basically tries to command Jane to marry him and refuses to accept her "no" as final. He withholds affection from Jane as a tactic to get her to compromise in order to reconcile with him when he's the one who should be apologizing to her and considering her needs and not just his own. Jane knows that she can't ever be happy with him because he doesn't respect her and his lack of respect only makes her want to seek his approval, which he is all too happy to exploit for his own benefit.

But Jane ultimately stays firm and rejects St. John's proposal of a loveless marriage, just as she rejected Rochester's proposal of an unlawful marriage, because both situations were doomed to fail if she didn't put her own self-respect first.

So this novel from 1847 was really saying that power dynamics aren't pure black and white. Age and class and wealth and status can be a factor in making a relationship unequal, but you can also be equal on pretty much all social axis and still have inequality in a relationship. What's really important is that there's mutual respect.

Jane and Rochester are my favourite couple hands down but funny enough one of my favourite scenes in the book is their breakup. Not only is it filled with such raw emotions and passion but Charlotte Brontë fed us so much poetic symbolism on their wedding night!!!

1. Rochester bridal carries Jane down the stairs when she felt faint. What stereotypically happens on a wedding night? A groom bridal carries his bride to the bedroom to consummate the marriage. Ironic how it’s reversed… they are descending the stairs and leaving the bedroom.

2. Rochester seating Jane in his chair. His chair symbolizes authority and power. Jane sits in his chair because symbolically she now holds the power and authority over what happens to their relationship. Having Rochester place Jane in his chair foreshadows his realization at the end of the scene that he is in fact powerless, and there is nothing he can do to make Jane stay unless it’s of her own free will. His fate lies within her choice.

3. Again, Charlotte plays with the theme of traditional marriage ceremonies and gives Jane & Rochester reverse wedding vows. Typically in the marriage ceremony there is a vow made followed by an “I do”. Charlotte cleverly uses this but makes it a vow of separation between Jane and Rochester. He pleads to Jane if she really means to go and Jane replies “I do”, then Rochester repeatedly asks if she means it after kissing her to which Jane responds “I do” each time.

4. Rochester’s “I could bend her with my finger and thumb” speech. This whole monologue is full of symbolism as Rochester reasons with himself if physical violence would be his last resort in making Jane stay. Nothing he has said could convince her to yield. He knows he is powerless, though there is one place he still knows he holds more power… in his physical strength. He verbalizes in pretty graphic symbolism what would happen if this option would get him what he wants (Jane) but it won’t do. Even if he got to Jane’s body he wouldn’t have her soul (and that’s really what he wants). He realizes the ONLY way he can have Jane is if her will decides it and this is the moment he finally lets her go.

In 1847 the stereotypes for male and female writers were very rigid. Critics expected from a male writer strength, passion, and intellect, and from a woman writer they expected tact, refinement, and piety. They depended on these stereotypes so much, in fact, that they really didn't know how to proceed, what to say, or what to look for in a book if they were unsure of the author's sex.

So Jane Eyre created a tremendous sensation, and it was a problem for the Brontës. The name Currer Bell could be that of either a man or a woman and the narrator of Jane Eyre is Jane herself. The book is told as an autobiography. These things suggested that the author might have been a woman. On the other hand, the novel was considered to be excellent, strong, intelligent and, most of all, passionate. And therefore, the critics reasoned, it could not be written by a woman, and if it turned out that it was written by a woman, she had to be unnatural and perverted.

The reason for this is that the Victorians believed that decent women had no sexual feelings whatsoever—that they had sexual anesthesia. Therefore, when Jane says about Rochester that his touch "made her veins run fire, and her heart beat faster than she could count its throbs," the critics assumed this was a man writing about his sexual fantasies. If a woman was the author, then presumably she was writing from her own experience, and that was disgusting. In this case we can clearly see how women were not permitted the authority of their own experience if it happened to contradict the cultural stereotype.

But even more shocking than this to the Victorians was Jane's reply to Rochester, a very famous passage in the novel. He has told her he is going to marry another woman, an heiress, but that she can stay on as a servant. Jane answers him thus:

"I tell you I must go," I retorted, roused to something like passion. "Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton, a machine without feeling and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I'm soulless and heartless? You think wrong. I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should've made it as hard for you to leave me as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionality, nor even of mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit, just as if both had passed through the grave and we stood at God's feet equal—as we are."

This splendid assertion violated not only the standards of sexual submission, which were believed to be women's duty and their punishment for Eve's crime, but it also went against standards of class submission, and obviously against religion. And this sort of rebellion was not feminine at all.

The reviews of Jane Eyre in 1847 and 1848 show how confused the critics were. Some of them said Currer Bell was a man. Some of them, including Thackeray, said a woman. One man, an American critic named Edgar Percy Whipple, said the Bells were a team, that Currer Bell was a woman who did the dainty parts of the book and brother Acton the rough parts. All kinds of circumstantial evidence were adduced to solve this problem, such as the details of housekeeping. Harriet Martineau said the book had to be the work of a woman or an upholsterer. And Lady Eastlake, who was a reviewer for one of the most prestigious journals, said it couldn't be a woman because no woman would dress her heroines in such outlandish clothes.

Eventually Charlotte Brontë revealed her identity, and then these attacks which had been general became personal. People introduced her as the author of a naughty book; they gossiped that she was Thackeray's mistress. They speculated on the causes of what they called "her alien and sour perspective on women." She felt during her entire short life that she was judged always on the basis of what was becoming in femininity and not as an artist.

-Elaine Showalter, ‘Women Writers and the Female Experience’ in Radical Feminism, Koedt et al (eds.)

Just a thought… Rochester delays paying Jane her wages until she leaves to visit Mrs. Reed. Could it be that the reason behind this delay is more psychological than practical?

Consider this: Rochester might associate paying Jane with the transactions he had with his former mistresses, whom he paid for their company. Rochester never truly viewed Jane as just an employee. In his mind, he already had a deeper, more personal connection with her. Paying her would shatter this fantasy and reduce their relationship to a mere employer-employee dynamic, something he’s clearly uncomfortable with labelling their relationship as.

It's not that Rochester is stingy or unwilling to part with his money—quite the opposite, in fact. He enjoys being generous, almost to a fault. Even when Jane asks for leave, he doesn’t merely pay her the wages he owes; he offers her a £50 note, an amount far exceeding what she’s due. He wasn’t paying her as an employer but rather a “friend”. This suggests that Rochester’s reluctance to pay her isn’t about the money itself but rather the social implications of the transaction.

Rochester despises his past actions of hiring mistresses, equating it to "buying a slave." This disdain likely influences his feelings toward paying Jane. He doesn’t have an issue with paying his other female employees, but with Jane, it’s different. His romantic feelings complicate things. For Rochester, paying Jane is too reminiscent of paying for love, a notion that deeply disturbs him. This is why I believe he delays paying her.

I think the real appeal of Mr Darcy isn't that he's handsome, rich and has the whole "redeemable jerk" vibe to him.

I think the real appeal is that he sees the worst in Lizzy and still loves her. He thinks so little of her, feels genuine contempt and still comes out the other side wanting to be with her. It doesn't matter that what he perceives as "flaws" is basically classist bullshit, just the fact that he sees flaws in her and still wants her is enough.

Personally, I won't believe anyone who tells me I'm perfect. I know I'm not and even if I believe they think that of me, I will spend my time dreading the time they figure out the truth and possibly reject me.

But what if someone showed up and already thought ill of me? Even better, someone who believes about me the worst of the things I believe about myself? Someone who thinks I'm lazy and awkward and I talk too much and I spend too much money and I eat more than I should and I can't properly take care of myself? And what if that person also loved me and chose to be with me, because I am so kind, honest, intelligent, funny and artistic that they figure I'm worth their love?

THAT is where the appeal lies. And this aspect of it is perfectly encapsulated in that line from Pride & Prejudice's quasi-adaptation, Bridget Jones's Diary:

so, it's not that we like ill-mannered jerks. We just like the idea that someone would go to such lengths and overcome their own selves to date trashcans like us. What a compliment.

I've been thinking about the fact that some readers of Sense and Sensibility don't believe Willoughby truly loved Marianne, even though everyone in the book believes it and the narrator makes it clear how much he cared for her, at the end. And I think this reading of him takes away from one of the messages of the book, which is that love is not enough.

Willoughby loves Marianne, but that's not enough to stop him from hurting her, it's not enough to make him give up his cushy lifestyle and marry her, and it wouldn't have been enough to keep him happy with her long-term. Marianne loves Willoughby, but it wouldn't have been enough for her to be happy with him long-term either.

Edward loves Elinor, but that's not a good enough reason to break his promise to Lucy, because integrity and honor and responsibility are just as important to him. Brandon loves Marianne, but that's not reason enough to court her, because he knows her feelings lie elsewhere and she doesn't respect and esteem him yet.

Love is important to all these characters, and is a vital part in making the marriages that they ultimately end up in strong and happy, but it's not the only thing that makes them work.

Of course, Sense and Sensibility is hardly the only Austen novel to make the point that you need more than love or romance or passion to make a relationship work. But I think it's interesting how we get to see this play out in the villain of the novel. Willoughby does some truly horrific things, but his character shows that even really bad guys are capable of feeling love and guilt and remorse. But none of these feelings are ultimately strong enough to change him. Because love is not enough.

When Jane says she’s cold while Rochester is holding her hand… and he replies in question, “Cold?”. He can feel she is not, quite the opposite, her hands were very warm (so warm home girl felt feverish and couldn’t sleep all night bc of that stirring passion awakening). The text doesn’t explicitly say this but I think it’s implied. We are reading from Jane’s POV who in this moment is just trying to leave his room bc the feeling of desire is unfamiliar to her at the moment and she wants to avoid it in the present. But the clue lies with Rochester’s reply when he questions her “Cold?”. To Rochester’s silly lil brain Jane saying “I’m cold” translates to “Get away from me you unlovable beast I want to leave now and you’re ugly” in Rochesterian. So he plays along and is like “oh yes yes and standing in a pool! go Jane😐 ( 10/10 acting) obviously Rochester being Rochester does the totally rational thing any normal person would do and leave immediately, go get Blanche and execute plan make Jane jealous. Because waiting until morning to find to your surprise Jane is absolutely down bad simping for you is too long of a wait. Clearly spending roughly a month on this plan is way faster (Rochester math).