Lesson Element
Learner resource 3: Point of view and
characterisation of Rochester
Jane learns little about him before meeting
Mr Rochester was Mr Rochester in her
eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor –
nothing more: she inquired and searched
no further, and evidently wondered at my
wish to gain a more definite notion of his
identity.
Jane’s first sight, not realising who the man
is
I traced the points of middle height, and
considerable breadth of chest. He had a
dark face, with stern features and a heavy
brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows
looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was
past youth, but had not reached middle
age.
Bluebeard
Jane calls him ‘her master’ and to ‘serve
him’
When engaged
For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a severe tweak of the ear.
I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. “I can keep you in reasonable check now,” I
reflected; “and don’t doubt to be able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue,
another must be devised”.
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Chapter 15
I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much
unconscious pride in his port; so much case in his demeanour; such a look of complete
indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other
qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that
in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference; and even in a blind, imperfect
sense, put faith in the confidence.
Chapter 37
His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his
hair was still raven-black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year’s space, by
any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled, or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his
countenance, I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding – that reminded me of
some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The
caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that
sightless Samson.
In Ferndean Chapter 37 some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to
approach in his sullen woe
still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the welling back of his
chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark
eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too – not without a certain change in
their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
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