Watermarks Perfection and Darkness: Choice in Jane Eyre by Alison Stratton

When reading Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, I find myself cheering for Rochester. After finishing the book, I ask myself why Jane chooses Rochester over St. John. After all, Rochester has a "mad" wife, Bertha Mason, locked in the attic of Thornfield Hall at the same time that he is proposing marriage to Jane. He has a ward living with him, possibly the offspring of an illicit affair with a French dancer. He is arrogant, pushy, and basically ill-tempered. St. John, on the other hand, is well mannered, respected, and has a promising future. To answer my own question, then, it is essential to look at how each man fits the idea of masculinity in Victorian society, at how each man relates to Jane, and at why Bronte creates her two leading men to be such extreme opposites.

St. John Rivers exhibits all of the qualities of a respectable Victorian man. His father "was a plain man enough; but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found" (Bronte 383). St. John's father, although a gentleman, had lost a great deal of money "by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt" (384). In short, St. John's station in life is one of a gentleman, although he lacks an inheritance of any kind. As he describes himself to Jane, "since I am poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity… for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange" (395-396). St. John sees his financial situation as a virtue. It is obvious that his financial situation does not distress him; he still goes to college and becomes a minister. In his account of his personal life he leaves out nothing. His past is known, and it is proper; his place in Victorian society is secure.

St. John's social standing is not the only feature that makes him the perfect Victorian man. His physical demeanor denotes the Victorian ideas of strength and honor:

His straight lines, fair coloring, and strong jaw denote a certain virtue or honor in his physiognomy. At first, it seems that Bronte places St. John on a divine level, by describing him as a Greek god. However, Bronte is careful not to raise him fully to that level, because to do so would forfeit his Christian humility. Instead she describes the perfect marble statue, or the perfect Victorian man. According to Helene E. Roberts, Victorian men are to be an "oak" (48). They are supposed to posses a sense of self-control and self-discipline that "were revered as personal attributes" (Tuss 45). Women, on the other hand, were the "vine" that clings to the oak for support (Roberts 48). The rigidity applies to St. John's personality as well as his physical features.

When St. John first rescues Jane, his warm, generous, and charitable ways seem genuine; after all, he is the one who first brings her into the Marsh End. After Jane recovers, a different side of St. John is revealed. On the first day that Jane is able to come downstairs, he assaults her with a plethora of questions regarding her past. From then on, Jane states several times that St. John regards her with a kind of coolness. She says, "As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters, did not extend to him" (392). Jane further describes him as "incommunicative, reserved, abstracted, and [with] a brooding nature" (393). Jane describes a man who looks good on the surface, but has no depth or warmth. Bronte offers a low opinion of the perfect yet artificial man, by describing St. John more like a work of art than a living man.

As stated before, the commonplace idea for the perfect Victorian man is that he is an oak, and as such, he is expected to show little to no emotion. This may seem strange to modern readers, but we must remember that it is normal for the time. Helene E. Roberts in her essay, "Marriage, Redundancy or Sin: The Painter's View of Women in Twenty-Five Years of Victoria's Reign," points out the stoicism expected of men at the time by citing the painting Woman's Mission: Companion of Manhood by George Hicks. She says that, in the painting, the husband has received the news of the death of a relative, and he covers his grief-stricken face with his hand. His wife is the one to show emotion, again reiterating the idea of the oak and the vine. The Victorian man "neither turns to his wife nor leans on her" (Roberts 48). Such is the case with St. John Rivers. Jane observes his reaction to Miss Rosamond Oliver, the object of his affection. She says the following:

St. John's only burst of secular passion comes when Jane observes the following scene:

St. John's stoicism and restraint, as well as his social position and statuesque physical appearance, help to make him a model of the ideal Victorian man. Yet, Bronte critiques this model of manhood by having her heroine choose against Victorian society's model of perfection.

If we follow the superficial characteristics of the Victorian ideal that Bronte borrows upon to create her stoic hero, St. John Rivers, then Edward Rochester is left as the anti-hero. Just as St. John possesses good social standing, so does Rochester. Further, Rochester has acquired money, though not solely through his own personal inheritance. Part of his money comes from his wife's family. He is able to throw lavish parties for several guests, and he travels frequently. However, Rochester's acceptance among his fellow socialites is questionable. His past is shady. His adventures in France and his affair with a certain governess half his age speak of a less than ideal man. For all intents and purposes, Rochester nevertheless is in good social standing. He may share the same social status as St. John Rivers, but unlike St. John, he has the money to back up his position. He also has something else that St. John does not have. He has a passion that is absent in the stoic oak. This passion can be seen in Jane's description of Rochester:

Rochester's physical description is darker, almost sinister, when compared to St. John's golden demeanor. Yet, his lack of physical beauty humanizes him. Whereas St. John's physiognomy remains lofty, bordering on perfection, Rochester is brought down to earth with physical faults.

Rochester realizes that he is not the statuesque beauty that is ideal for Victorian men like St. John. He admits his faults (while, I might add, being extremely insulting to Jane), "You are not pretty any more than I am handsome" (151). He is completely indifferent to his own appearance, and he is haughty and arrogant. His arrogance, along with his overwhelming passions, has earned him the description used by many scholars: Byronic (Gilbert 354). Byronic is defined as "a model for the mysteriously brooding, bitter, vaguely northern loner, sexually polymorphous, reckless and doomed and always dangerous" (Harmon 73). Rochester's Byronic passion is best displayed in his grief and rage when Jane leaves Thornfield. Rochester becomes reckless, doomed and quite dangerous, "and he grew savage--quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too… He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up, like a hermit, at the Hall" (475).

It is obvious that the two prominent male characters in Jane Eyre are meant to be complete opposites. They differ socially, physically, and emotionally, but perhaps the largest disparity between the two men comes in their relation to Jane. As mentioned before, St. John questions Jane relentlessly on the first day that she is well. After the questioning ends, however, St. John disappears. The disappearance adds to his already cold manner towards Jane. She says, "One reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at home" (392). When he is at home he sits alone at his desk and remains silent. It is Jane that first approaches him when she inquires about a job following the family's departure from Marsh End; she makes the first move.

It is while she is employed as a teacher that her life with St. John is transformed from passive to active. Jane and St. John begin a friendship that will eventually enable her to give him advice concerning Miss Oliver. Jane advises St. John to follow his heart and marry Rosamond, even if it interferes with his missionary work. He refuses the idea. He does not picture the hard life of a missionary's wife for Rosamond. His extreme dedication is shown through his willingness give up the love of his life in order to continue his Christian mission. When St. John turns to Jane because he needs a companion, Jane is unaware of St. John's plans to make her, not Rosamond, his missionary wife. St. John reasons, "God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love" (448). When he justifies his proposal to Jane by placing social duty over love, she rejects his rationality and his marriage proposal. Jane, however, is punished for rejecting the Victorian ideal by losing her friendship with St. John. Bronte makes an obvious statement about Christian faith by punishing Jane. St. John, the poor parson with the radiant good looks, wishes to make his plain angel part of his divine plan even though he loves another woman. Bronte simply cannot accept the notion of a "practical" marriage. Jane must not choose a man who would rather marry for utility than love simply because it would be the "correct" thing to do. Thus Bronte creates Rochester as an alternative to St. John, to demonstrate the enormous strength Jane exercises in making her choices.

According to Victorian models for respectability, Rochester is the antihero of Jane Eyre. He is physically imperfect and more emotionally substantial than his Victorian foil. His imperfections humanize him, as does his treatment of Jane. When he first asks for her hand in marriage, he leads her to believe that she will have to leave Thornfield because he is to marry Blanche Ingram. The prospect of Rochester marrying Blanche upsets Jane greatly, and she nearly misses her own marriage proposal. Jane is skeptical at first, thinking Rochester is playing a game. Her skepticism causes Rochester to become more impassioned the longer she procrastinates. Rochester finally can take no more and exclaims, "Jane, you torture me! With that searching and yet faithful and more generous look, you torture me!" (286). Jane comments on this rarely seen side of her master, saying, "If I had loved him less I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage" (287). Jane has been swept away by the passions of Edward Rochester.

The two marriage proposals show a trait that is common between the two suitors. Both men are manipulators. St. John prepares Jane to be a missionary wife before he asks her to marry him. Rochester leads Jane to believe that he is marrying Blanche Ingram. The reason behind the manipulation is different for each man. St. John is obviously manipulating Jane to serve his career and to keep up social appearances. Rochester is also a manipulator, but he manipulates in the hopes of finding real love. Bronte's opposition to a marriage of utility can be seen in Jane's reaction to her manipulation. While Jane rejects St. John's attempts at manipulation, she overlooks Rochester's attempts.

There is yet another reason Jane chooses Rochester over St. John. It is clear that Rochester sweeps Jane up with a passion of which St. John is incapable, but there is something else that aids him: Equality. When St. John Rivers proposes marriage to Jane, the proposal is basically a business arrangement. Jane will become, if she so chooses, the wife of a missionary. She will be eternally conscripted to servitude, to God, to the destitute and the disadvantaged people around her. Most of all, she will not only become St. John's wife, but also his secretary. Rather than have Jane stand on her own two feet, St. John would have it be another form of support: "The Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do no doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness" (448). She responds, "I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labors" (448-449). St. John has anticipated this response and tells her:

She does not wish to be made into a laborer for someone else's cause; it is obvious because she says, "My iron shroud contracted around me" (449).

Bronte sympathizes with Jane at this junction. She realizes that a marriage of utility is not one of equality and love. St. John's greatest compliment to Jane is that she is "docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself--I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable" (449). This relationship is not one of equality. She would not only become an eternal servant but she will always be St. John's last resort. Remember that St. John loves Rosamond Oliver, and Jane, in his eyes, will never equal her. How can Jane accept a man who is not true to his own heart and expect him to be true to her heart? I believe it is impossible to accept a man like St. John Rivers, and so does Charlotte Bronte.

One of the noblest qualities of Edward Rochester is his willingness to see Jane as his equal. Rochester's ideas of equality come early in the relationship. He says to Jane, when she is unwilling to entertain him, "The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior… I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years difference in age and a century's advance in experience" (152). The idea of equality also surfaces in his marriage proposal. Jane says to Rochester when she is convinced that she must leave, "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!" (286). Rochester affirms the equality with a kiss and asks her to marry him. On the next page he offers her "my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions... I ask you to pass through life at my side--to be my second self, and best earthly companion" (285). Rochester offers equality, as well as property, the truth of love, and a chance for Jane to climb the social ladder. This opportunity is rare because of the position that Jane is in socially. The Victorians were circumspect about the notion of social mobility; so Rochester's offering of equality and property would have been almost unthinkable (Peterson 7). Rochester tells Jane of his desire for equality, saying, "My bride is here because my equal is here, and my likeness" (285). Apparently Rochester already thinks of Jane as an equal when he tells her of his affair with Celine, the French dancer. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in The Madwoman in the Attic say, "His long account of his adventure with Celine--an account which, incidentally, struck many Victorian readers as totally improper, coming from a dissipated older man to a virginal young governess--emphasizes, at least superficially, not his superiority to Jane but his sense of equality with her" (352).

Charlotte Bronte clearly advocates an equal status in marriage. Jane refuses St. John because to accept him means a lifetime (and perhaps an eternity) of subservience. St. John's blinding Christian ambition and strict Victorian ideals make it impossible for Jane to form an attachment with him. Bronte suggests that the passion and sensuality exhibited by Edward Rochester is preferable to the staunch propriety of the typical Victorian man.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Michael Mason. London: Penguin, 1996.

Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and The Nineteenth-Centurv Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.

Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Peterson, M. Jeanne. "The Victorian Governess: Status Incongruence in Family and Society." Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.

Roberts, Helene E. "Marriage, Redundancy or Sin: The Painter's View of Women in the First Twenty-Five Years of Victoria's Reign." Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.

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