Yeah that was my understanding too from covering both books at Uni

Yeah and I think people often forget that..it really isnt that I do not criticize Rochester, I totally see his faults, but for his time he was being very kind.

People too easily criticise past actions and norms and hold them to today’s standards. It shows a lack of insight and understanding of humanity’s culture and customs as they evolve. For the example of Jane Eyre, mental hospitals were any but healthy for their patients. But at the time ‘polite society’ told people to ship away embarrassing members of your family. For him to keep Bertha in the house and not lock her away was unnatural. And one more note; Bertha freeing herself by burning down the house and leaping to her death is not a ‘you go girl’ moment but a tragic outcome for a mentally ill woman whom needed help and care.

it's literally in the book. also there was no divorce at that time. but petty doubling down on infantilising white women is more important than research when we don't want to process our own internalised adultification.

Yes, it bothers me they didn’t consider that when making this video.

Yet constantly finds himself in the very places he whines about. How odd!

@@malirabbit6228 lmaoooooooo accurate

Or any spoiled men/males/boys 🤣 i speak from having to deal with my own dad for these issues 🙄 super annoying and amusing

​@@msk-qp6fn amen.

Highly underrated comment 😂

We need a full version of this. Brilliant!

🎵 Mrs. Fairfax's advice that you partially take. But who would've thought -- he's married. 🎵

Bloody brilliant! 😂😂😂

Also the love between Jane and Rochester was finally possible when they started to be equal

I still think that Wuthering heights is not a romance novel is a book about abuse and obsession

@@MariaRodriguez-dx6sm That, too.

@@operacz_9327 Heck yeah! I think that if he'd been single when they first tried to get married the relationship would have deteriorated crazy fast

Yes! I said the same about the asylums, back then. The attic was much preferred and if Bertha was dangerous, she needed some sort of wrangling.

THIS

I'm *so* glad you said this, when people criticize Rochester I feel like it's because they don't know history. Mental hospitals of that era were a horror show and divorce was practically impossible, so... *what were his other options?* P.S. He still should have been upfront with Jane.

@Amierane could you please elaborate?

@Amierane I have read it, what solution, drowning her ? Divorce wasn't a option back then.

I don't even think it's fair to condemn him for any of his other actions in the novel. He certainly didn't "go after" Jane. He legitimately fell in love with her, and she him. Divorce wasn't an option, and he knew that if he told her the truth, she would leave him (as she did). He was an incredibly depressed, miserable man who was nearly as much a victim of society as she was.

People also say Wuthering Heights is a love story. Honestly, it seems like the Bronte sisters were each trying to be more and more like, "No, these are abuse narratives, stupid people!' So Anne just straight up gave us domestic violence in Tenet of Wildfell Hall

It’s gothic fiction.

@@kenshinhimura2322 i see a lot of gothic influences in the novel, but the “love” part of the story and the “happy ending” take over and push the book away from the traditional horror in gothic literature. For me, Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman that takes advantage of gothic tropes (the haunted mysterious house) and subverts it (real woman, no supernatural elements) to further the plot and explore how women lived in Jane’s times.

@@annieboookhall Still haven’t read anything by Anne, but a lot of people have recommended me that book. Maybe I’ll give it a try.

@@luizappicanco Gothic and romance are not mutually exclusive though.

Or blondes. Lol.

Saying Rochester is problematic character as a criticism is kinda funny? Because he was written as problematic, people are problematic and do horrible stuff.

@@operacz_9327 truth.

If you read the novel closely, a lot of the time Rochester is telling the truth but in terms Jane doesn't understand. He will attempt to tell her the truth, Jane will give him a conditional response, and then he turns sardonic, covering up his moment of revelation with a lie. Pay attention to the second conversation, the gypsy bit where she tells him about Mason, and the post-Mason attack walk in the garden.

@@barbarabrown7974 oh, yes! You're so right! But in Jane's defence, some of his metaphors were pretty tough.

@@etherealtb6021 And Jane states that she doesn't understand riddles or enigmas in the gypsy scene. The whole charade game was designed for Jane as the audience.

I read this as S&M and i was very confused

@@jackcullen5085 me too 😭

my my i love Princess but this comment is so much more nuanced than the whole video. I know it's only 17 minutes long but it seemed to be more about WSS than Jane Eyre and why her story speaks to many people today. To go trough the life without love o another and to reject it in the name of self love and self respect it's a real bravery. And that's why I love this book.

@@operacz_9327 Yes this is the reason why I loved the book! You put this point very well!

Years ago I listened to the semi-autobiographical "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books" by NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan. The thoughtful folks in this comment thread would appreciate her perspective on this genre. It's stuck with me after all these years.

She always looks good, but she is styling on us for this one, what a delight.

THANK YOU

Yes,thanks for sharing your thoughts

Kind of has a right to be upset about being imprisoned in an attic for TEN years! ? ! Kinda ? Either she does or she does not. To be so unclear about a human beings foul treatment says a lot.

In reading the book,I find no reference to Bertha being "locked up for ten years "in fact the passage way to the attic didn't even have a door on it until some time after Jane arrived .Besides ,there has to be a little more than anger to SET YOUR HUSBANDS BED ON FIRE WITH HIM IN IT and ATTACK YOUR BROTHER WITH A KNIFE WHILE SCREAMING ABOUT DRAINING THEIR HEARTH sooooo yea ,take from that what you will

Um, she literally could have been in an asylum or Rochester could have murdered her crazy tush to get her off his hands. Comparatively she was living the life or Riley with her full time maidservant in the attic.

because when you were never allowed to be sensitive, you must take revenge on those who seem to have it better. side with the machos and feel real superior.

I think it was mentioned in book too

That's in the book. Chapter 17. He also describes how he wanted to provide a safe and comfortable environment for her. I mean, it was the 19th century.

@@liv97497 all of this. He still could've treated her better personally, but he did do the best for her care, at the time.

My main beef with Rochester is the basic one: He should have just been honest with everyone that he was married and that his wife was mentally ill. It's not so much that he kept her locked up with a caretaker in a time when antipsychotic meds and therapy didn't exist. It's the fact that he hid her and kept her secret. Probably would have made his life easier, and not just in terms of how he lied to Jane.

@@thatjillgirl 100% and that's why he must be punished to deserve our heroine, who is always honest about herself.

Karmic 🙂 (although karma in itself implies poetic justice)

I think that's kinda the point. He doesn't get a pass for his behaviour. He is punished.

It's rather like the Hayes code. Characters who do wrong have to be punished, although in Rochester's case, it is a pretty strong case of self-delusion/denial. I also consider that Rochester never progressed beyond the denial part of grief. "I made horrible marriage decision when I was young to someone I have nothing in common with. She's also mentally ill, and I cannot legally get out; therefore, in order to cope, I deny that I am really married." Now if Rochester were a better person, he would have made lemonade out of lemons and used his money and energy toward helping the mentally ill. But Rochester's coping mechanisms were denial and avoidance. Does that make him an awful person? Not necessarily. As someone who took care of a mentally and physically disabled relative, I will say that it is a daunting challenge, not to be taken lightly. Stronger people have been crushed under the challenge.

To rejoice that Bertha burns Thornfield is a bit of a sadistic and bitter take, don't you think? It really is more of a tragedy for both Bertha and Mr Rochester

Bertha is not a woman of color. She is Creole- a white British woman born in the colonies.

one only needs to look to Bedlam

this and it was pointed out in book

IA...I'm a little hmmmm also.

I very important point and one I hadn't considered before.

Not to mention that he also had the option of sending her to be looked after at another house he owned, with much less risk that his secret would be discovered, but he thought the damp air would be harmful to her health, so he kept her at Thornfield.

wow, that was incredibly nuanced! made me realise that jane going back to rochester (not knowing that he was a viable husband - to her standards - now) is actually an act of emancipation, of trusting her experience over what her childhood traumata were telling her... breaking free from internalised gaslighting basically ❤

Your literary legacy awaits you.

I was JUST thinking the same thing!

Just this year (2024), L.L. McKinney wrote “Escaping Mr. Rochester”, where Jane and Bertha are Black and they develop a sapphic relationship!

I do agree that Helen was absolutely the truest love of her life and the loss that definitely shaped her the most. From what I read into it, marriage to John seemed like a false liberty. She would physically be travelling with him to many places, but she would always have to be shackled to his side and his mission. She would be herself but instead an extension of her husband and a representative of him. Her relationship with Rochester was instead defined in him delighting in her wit and independence.

​@@fridalighjemdallen7283 exactly!

😂 the aesthetic tho

If you read the novel closely, there were times he tried to tell her, but in terms she did not understand.

@@barbarabrown7974 I agree! 🙂

Infidelity was a valid reason for divorce in the mid-19th century -- insanity was not. Note that in Downton Abbey, Lady Edith was in a similar situation as Jane was -- and Downton Abbey was in the 1920s. Once Bertha was declared insane, Rochester could not divorce her

Actually, Rochester was being kind according to the time and what people did with mentally ill family members: they sent them to Bedlam. I assure you, Bertha's life would've been much shorter and much more miserable there. It's unfortunate, but depending on what mental illness she would've had, there's nothing more Rochester could've done in Victorian England other than just make her comfortable with a competent attendant. He even has her live in Thornfield rather than his other property because the air wouldn't be good for her lungs in the other place, even if it would make his life MUCH easier to just hide her away in another property and make her into someone else's problem until she dies. If nothing else, he had a sense of duty towards keeping her alive and as healthy and comfortable as possible. It's not love or affection, but he felt a sense of obligation. Maybe if she had BPD or something similar, she might've been able to get meds NOW and live a semi normal life by keeping up with a strict med regiment and keeping up with a psychiatrist. Back then? No way, it's either the attic or the bedlam. Even loving families eventually would've sent their ill relative to bedlam simply out of sheer self-preservation. As sad as it is to say, being someone's caregiver is emotionally and physically and mentally exhausting. Go to any caregiver forum and you'll note that most of the common themes are something like "I've been caregiving for X amount of time and I can't take this anymore, I'm nearing a severe burnout and there's no one who can help me, advice?" Even if Rochester had a professional attending to her, it's not pleasant at all to live in the same roof as someone who causes problems all the time. So, on that end, criticize Rochester all you want for lying through omission and the marital fraud. But the Bertha thing? I can honestly say that I would've just sent her to another property after the first year just so I wouldn't have to live with someone who is one psychotic episode away from attacking me.

I think it was her awful cousin who threw the book at Jane's head. The string connecting them is a visceral sense memory.

The problem is that part of this discussion is about The Wide Sargasso Sea -- not Jane Eyre. Should we consider WSS to be cannon? Or should we consider it to be fan fic? There are several things that don't mesh about the timeline and the characters. Yes, Rochester is a bit of a jerk, but he also has some good qualities, which is what makes him human. Also often he tries to tell Jane the truth, but she doesn't get it, and then he backs off. Pay attention to some of their odd, early conversations for clues.

WSS is not canon, it’s fanfiction that second-wave feminists fell in love with without taking into account that Bertha is in “Jane Eyre” as a physically abusive pyromaniac. And sending her to an asylum at the time would have been to sentence Bertha to a slow, horrible death like Helen experienced.

Jane Eyre: This Ain't It, Chief.

Nobody? Sorry but this comment is really dishonest

@@operacz_9327 it actually isn't. I have an English degree of all things, and while Jane Eyre isn't the type of book I sight out in my undergrad, it would still come up in conversation sometimes. I did not know about the woman in the attic until yesterday. But it's cool of you to call me a liar.

There's not really much of Bertha to pay attention to in the original text. She's a phantom who was subsequently given a revisionist take by Rhys.

Umm...did we read the same Tenant of Wildfell Hall? That story has a happy ending, but is a straight up domestic violence story throughout

@@annieboookhall Um, we did. But I possibly should have phrased that better than I did. I meant 'sadly real world love story' (in the sense that yes, many womens relationships are filled with domestic violence) to the more romantic and windswept (even at the end) of Jane Eyre.

@EnnameMori Ah okay 👍

I'm pretty sure it's the local accent of the characters saying it.

@@rachaelknudsen8801 No really it's pronounced Singe -en. Go and look at the Rowan Atkinson scene in Four Weddings and a funeral if you don't believe me.

Okay. I had no idea.

When the world around you is black and blue, it colors what enters in. I see where you're coming from and hope you are doing well.

Rathfriland isn’t a village. It’s a market town. Close relatives of her family still live there, actually. My father grew up down the road from them, and the children of the family at the time were friends with my aunts. They’re good folks.

what a happy coincidence

I also hate that reading interpretation that Bertha represents all Janes fury from the life she had as a child. Making a woman of possibly mixed race's entire presence in the novel a metaphorical figure of a white woman's emotions doesn't sit well with me.

I mean I can see that buy it's good to consider that her love to Helen was a love of a child so naturally it will be completely different

I loved it!

Why would you say something so controversial yet brave