Chapter 17, Jane Eyre
Preliminary mark to those who wrote a commentary: what I see as the area to be improved, is
how you explain why you focus on what you focus on. Many of you are good at isolating
what happens in the passage, and re-stating what happens in it. What you need to add to that
is, frequent statements of what is interesting or important in that which you isolate and restate. Be very didactic, very pedagogical, and very explicit, and therefore, state clearly to your
reader, “the interest of this is...”, “the point we can make here is ...”, “what is important in
what we have just seen is.” I see in the papers an assumption that your reader can figure that
out on her or his own. But, remember, your reader will be reading over 50 and maybe 100
papers. You need to be explicit and very clear to make your reading, your explanation, stand
out for its clarity, and ability to say what the importance is of the kinds of details you gather.
This means, be careful to build into your paper, very clear moments that mark your
progression, your logical progression and the steps of your demonstration. Otherwise, I think
most of the papers show good knowledge of the action of the book. In some cases, however,
what is first needed is simply one final read-through of the book again. In some cases, you do
not master the book yet. No better way to rectify that than just taking 2-3 days, and re-reading
it straight through.
This passage – most notable for Jane’s first declaration (realization or decision) to
love, or that she loves, or will love, or has to love, or is forced to love, Rochester (“I must
love him” 93) -- is situated in a dense series of actions: Chapter 15, and Jane’s saving
Rochester’s life and their sudden and intense intimacy; Chapter 16, Jane’s court-like selfarraignment and judgment to remember her inferiority and unsuitability to Rochester, and the
setting-into-motion of Rochester’s strategy with his guests; Chapter 17, the arrival of the
guests and Blanche Ingram’s attempt to humiliate Jane and Jane’s awareness of her own
advantages; Chapter 18, the charades with “Bride,” with Jane’s realization that Blanche
cannot “charm” Rochester, the arrival of Mason, and of the “gypsy” who disturbs Blanche;
Chapter 19, Jane’s unmasking of the gypsy and Rochester’s first semi-declaration; Chapter
20, the cannibalistic attack on Mason by Bertha and the departure of the guests (the opening
of courtship btw Jane and Rochester). This density reveals nonetheless the uniqueness of
Chapter 17 in the narrative economy: it is the only time in the book that Jane, as adult, has
contact with men and women of a higher social standing than hers (she will encounter
merchants with Rochester shopping for clothes, and when penniless in Chapter 28; and the
Rivers sisters who are her peers and even family). If we identify this particularity of the
setting, then we come closer to the function of the situation: the representation of Jane’s
realization (or decision or obligation) to love Rochester occurs within a social space where
she is with others – from a high level of Victorian society -- at the same time as she is apart
from them (an exclusion she will turn to her advantage). One might dwell, therefore, on how
aristocratic society is represented, and Jane’s position in this representation. This focus on the
theatre at Thornfield will isolate J’s ... mental and verbal self-positioning: alternation between
Jane character and Jane narrator, relation to reader. The ambiguity of what happens: free or
not? How to read JE? Of interest in this passage is how to read Jane’s statement, ambiguous
yet apparently straightforward, “I must love him”.
In what follows, I leave it to you to arrange the parts according to the following outline:
The purpose of the passage: to cement the bond of J to R, amid a hostile world, but to leave
the nature of the bond ambiguous; the means to accomplish the purpose: split universe of
theatre (flat/ round; mock vs serious, etc); dynamic internal struggle; love in the making
Tense as part of setting
The past perfect: “Miss Ingram had looked down” (5), “Lady Lynn had remarked” (7), “Mrs
Dent had kindly taken her hand” (9), “Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out” (10), “they had
called her” (11). These pas perfects are weird. One would expect simple preterit. The purpose
to the past perfect, however, is to create an acceleration of tempo, so that it builds up to a a
sudden introduction. “When they had done this, then something happened.” That is the effect
created by the list of past perfects. It creates a suddenness, and an emphasis on a visible
action, whereas preterits for what the ladies do would only have created a list of actions. The
purpose of the past perfects is to enhance the on-stage quality of the representation.
The contrastive stage representation has the function of cleaving Jane and Rochester
from superficial society
The other men have “gallant grace” and “languid elegance” or “military distinction” (64-66).
Grace and elegance almost cancel these men out from being virile men, and “gallant” and
“languid” are the coup de grace with which Jane castrates, in short, these long tall men.
Rochester’s “native pith” contrasts with the grace and elegance: pith is internal, the essential
sap or life inside a tree or body, and “native” has nothing of the merely cultural ornament of
“gallant” or “languid”. Rochester’s “genuine power” is stronger even than the military.
Rochester is not the sign or the representation of a man, he is the man himself. Jane, by
extension, is neither the silly frivolous little girl Adele, nor is she the brainless Amy or
Louisa. She is not what Adele will become, namely Blanche, nor will she become the vapid
elderly women Lady Lynn or Mrs Eshton. She will not lie in, Not She! (lynn, esh-ton). Jane is
the female correlative of the pith and power that Rochester is made of.
The dramatic intensity, created by contrast between stock or “flat” characters and
strongly individualized or “round characters” on the same stage.
The stage directions exist to enhance dramatic effect: “At last coffee is brought in, and the
gentlemen are summoned” (16) and “Where is Mr Rochester? He comes in last” (30). The
chiasmus (last, gentlemen // Rochester, last) reinforces the effect, and the reversal of
situation. Indeed, if the description of the “gentlemen” from 19 to 28 stresses surfaces and the
superficiality of the men, the description of Rochester is not a description at all, but a
flashback to action: “I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the moment when I
last saw it...” (34-36). Whereas the gentlemen are mere surfaces, and as inactive as cardboard
posters, Rochester is an action, an event, an experience, shared with Jane. The repetition of
the word “last” (I last saw [his figure]) emphasizes how Jane is a part of Rochester, and he of
her.
The representation of mock-seriousness as derision towards the aristocracy
The mock-serious: “stately reverence” and “gravity” (3-4), and the solemn procession of
verbs (rose, advanced, made, said) contrast with the situation, a little girl who takes herself
very seriously addressing a group of ladies whose brainlessness is insisted upon by the lack of
verbs in their statements, the exclamation marks of excess, and the nonsensical notion of love
expressed: “O, what a little puppet!” and “What a love of a child!”
The constrastive theatre, and its purpose in the text.
“[V]ery imposing” (19) cuts two ways. It could mean something akin to “stately,” insofar as
they impress Jane and others who do not have their wealth, but “imposing” also means
making an imposition, taking up space and time arrogantly. The “collective appearance” of
these people is very self-important, imposes on Thornfield and all the servants who have to
work a great deal for these people who act as if they are owed all the labour from all the lowly
others whose only purpose in life would be to serve this gentility. If it obvious that Janenarrator re-tells her attendance at their imposition as if she were a spectator of a theatrical
performance (the men are “costumed” 20, and Mr Eshton is cast in the role of the “’père noble
de théâtre”), it is clear also that she undercuts their self-importance, doubly, by remarking on
their jaded appearances from living a spoiled life of frivolity (their “apathetic and listless
look”) where excessive personal possessions spells their inactivity and pointlessness (“more
length of lim than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain” 27-28). They are empty and lifeless,
reduced to mechanical puppets, material objects whose movements depend on the movement
of the wind, “the light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the
bells as much significance as their laugh” (70-71), and who are devoid of feeling, “they were
in no sense moved” (78). The purpose of this theatrical representation is to represent the
separation from this aristocratic society, which is shown as mock-serious, and as a farce, and
the affinity of Jane and Rochester, whose physical appearances are similar to each others
while both being distinct from the mechanical puppets on stage.
The specification of what Jane (and Rochester) is about, and her difference from
conformist, brainless society
“her heart’s content” (15) is to be connected to “a heart full and eager to overflow” (37).
Adele is spoiled by the attention of all the ladies, except for Blanche: her heart is content,
filled with this flow of attention; Jane participated in the show and flow of Rochester’s
emotions, of his heart. The two situations are, however, different: the ladies look and interact
with a little girl who in some diminished measure is their mirror reflection, and the attention
is empty and nonsensical (Amy and Louisa’s “’What a love of a child!’” [11]), betokens a
what a childish kind of love, what a puppy or puppet love – thus something pre-gender, presexual – and also bespeaks, ironically, “’What a child of love!’”, i.e., underlines the irony of
Adele’s conception, child out of wedlock from Celine Varens and Rochester). Jane’s heart to
heart encounter with Rochester was different: sexually charged, between two adults of
opposite sex, half naked dripping wet and in an intense situation. And Jane and Rochester will
have children of love and marriage, assuming we believe Jane-narrator as reliable narrator.
The internal struggle, and its representation by linguistic contrasts
As soon as Jane describes Mr Rochester, or her relation to him, her language is shot through
with contrastive conjunctions, all of which testify to the double-direction of this passage,
pulling in one direction, and tugging in the contrary direction, a tug of war. She does not look
at him, but sees him (“not looking ... yet I see him” (30)), she puts her attention on her
needlework, but drops it and holds Rochester (“I try to concentrate my attention ...; whereas, I
distinctly behold his figure” (31, 34)). She feels intimate with him, but now impossibly far
away from him (“Yet now” (40)). Her pleasure is priceless, yet penetratingly painful: “a
precious, yet poignant pleasure” (49). This pleasure will kill her, but this death comes as life:
“knows the well ... is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks ... nevertheless” (51-52). Mr Rochester
is not beautiful to society, but is to her: “were not beautiful ...; but they were than beautiful”
(56-57). She feels nothing for the society, but society feels everything for itself: “I had not
sympathy ...; yet I could imagine” (69). Jane’s rivals feel nothing for Rochester, but Jane is
vindicated by their apathy: “I expected their eyes to fall ...; yet I was glad” (77). This
vindication of self takes the form of a contradiction that tears her in two: she knows she must
ever be separated from Rochester, but she decides to love him, decides that she has to love
him, will love him, is bound to love him: “I must then repeat ... for ever sundered; -- and yet
... I must love him” (92-93). The entire text referring to Rochester portrays the internal
struggle in Jane-the-character. Jane-the-narrator describes her former self as strengthened by
this internal war.
The internal struggle corroborated and exacerbated by an external display of
ambiguous behavior in Rochester.
One can read Rochester’s behavior two ways. On the one hand, he is devious and
manipulative: he stages a vast show, pretending to be interested in other women, particularly
Blanche, all for one spectator, so as to torture her by exacerbating her feeling of jealousy,
frustration and humiliation. His cowardice is in direct proportion to his financial means of
wasteful and hurtful aggressivity. On the other hand, he ridicules himself, since none of the
people there are sincerely interested in him, even scorn him as nothing other than a source of
money for their dissipation. Jane can identify Rochester’s tactic, and even conceive she has a
mission: to save him from such antics, which had been what Rochester requested (is there any
hope for the India rubber ball?) and is what this scene foreshadows (it is less God who
redeems him than it is Jane).
A dynamic process, mental activity rendered linguistically on the page
The internal struggle is dynamic; it changes quickly, like thoughts change quickly in the mind
of a person, and as language changes quickly on a page of paper. This rapid evolution is
remarkable in the progression “I believe,” “I am sure,” “I feel akin,” “I understand,” “I have
something ... that assimilates me to him” (79-83). From a belief to certainty, Jane then moves
from a feeling and knowledge of Rochester to actually being him and to him being her, to a
spiritual oneness. Physically separated, they are physically united at another level, and the
struggle she lives is the process of relinquishing the sovereignty of social rules and
recognizing the sovereignty of personal will and inner truth. Part of the purpose, therefore, of
this passage is to create the dramatic turnaround in the form of the revelation of Rochester’s
living first wife: certainty of Jane’s inner truth will be re-tested when it is confronted again to
social reality in the person of a first wife (not loved by Rochester). If the struggle against the
mores of Victorian society is set up in Chapter 17 to show how Jane defeats social stereotypes
and standards, this victory is also over a weak opponent, which Bertha Mason will not be. In
these ways, Charlotte Bronte is challenging her own society.
The internal struggle ends in crescendo, but how to read it?
Jane’s self-examination culminates in a crescendo: “I know I must”, “I must smother hope”,
“I must remember”, “I must then repeat,” “I must love him.” The crescendo of course ends in
a complete turnaround, from the self-annihilation of the previous “I must’s” to the final one.
The meaning of the statement, or declaration, is profoundly open-ended: it can mean that Jane
is being forced to do something she absolutely does not want to do, that she is not free. The
“must” would be an epistemic modal, saying that her reality is that she is not given the choice
but is being dictated to do something by a tyrant who knows fully how to manipulate her out
of any self-determination. In this sense, Jane the narrator writes a flashback of Jane the
character for whom the reader must feel pity. In this reading, the news of Bertha’s existence
will be a godsend for Jane. But “I must” can carry a far different meaning. It can be a radical
modal, meaning, “I will love him,” “it is what I have to do because it is the right thing to do,
no matter what the reality or the consequences.” In this regard, it is a decision, and not a fate
that must be submitted to. And then Jane is not to be pitied, but envied, as a self-determined
and free woman willing to take on all odds for what she believes in. In this reading, the news
of Bertha’s existence reveals the extent to which Rochester is not worthy of the courage and
desire of Jane.
Jane’s progression, and the purpose of this passage in the narrative economy
The comparison to be drawn from Jane-Adele (Adele on the stool, Jane behind her) is with
Miss Temple and with Jane (or Helen) on the stool. Whereas Jane-the-child at Lowood stayed
on the stool, Adele is unlike Jane and without the self-repression that Jane picked up, despite
what she said she would do, from Helen Burns. Jane-governess is however like Miss Temple:
she stays in the background. As Miss Temple ended up leaving Jane for a husband, and as
Jane is parallel to Miss Temple in this scene, perhaps this foreshadows Jane “leaving” Adele
for husband Rochester, which is partly what does come to pass, even if Adele is brought back.
Difference between this scene and Chapter 1: there, Jane is entirely hidden; here, she
is half-hidden, but also half-exposed: she is more in the world, more part of the world. She no
longer looks at birds in a book but gentility in a manor.
A moment of narrative instability, the purpose of which being to incite the reader
onwards:
“He made me love him without looking at me” (62). The supreme doubleness of this
statement. It means, on the one hand, Jane’s powerlessness, and how her love is total
submission. Rochester does not even stoop to look at her, and even still Jane is made to love
him. Rochester can make her love him, without his even paying attention to her. The situation
sounds very close to a sadist-masochist relation, which Jane in the position of the masochist
who loves the one who treats her poorly. Yet, on the other hand, because the theatre and
artifice of looking and looks are so superficial and even empty, it is to Rochester’s honour
that he does not resort to the base tactics of ogling and fawning over Jane. She is not one of
those dolls, and so Rochester does not debase her with supercilious gazing. Plus, Rochester is
exploding with physicality (53-58), unlike the limp and languid overly gentle men, so that
Rochester’s features of depth, darkness, strength, firmness, energy, boldness, audacity, are so
powerful that Jane’s power is cathected onto him as if she were an electric charge and he a
powerful magnet: this is not love at first sight or even love at sight at all. This is physical,
carnal, love and its modality is action and touch, smell, taste, more than the distant sense of
sight and hearing. Little can Jane expect, but oh how ironically prepared it is, that she will
watch front-row the wrestling match or conjugal embrace between the heavyweights
Rochester and Bertha in Chapter 26!
The aesthetic category of the sublime as marker of Rochester (and Jane’s) difference
(and their common sameness), hence cue to reader
Rochester is a figure of the sublime, more than of beauty. Beauty is 18th century, is Classical;
sublime is 19th century, is Romantic. The visual representation is meant to show how a 19th
painting is not an 18th century “conversation piece” painting: “Beauty is in the eye of the
gazer” (53). Figure of the sublime (“more than beautiful” 56).
The use of time shifts relative to the narrative economy
The present tense informs us that Jane-narrator gives us a flashback to what Jane-character
lived in “real time.” Jane-narrator is like a voice that leads and accompanies the reader in a
time travel, somewhat like a dream sequence or a flashback in a film. The present tense from
16 to 34 dictates that the description is a flashback. This flashback then stops, when it comes
to include a flashback inside a flashback, with Jane’s recollection, “just after ... at that
moment!” (35-39). The recollection of being close to him interrupts the present tense
narration, and the past tense of the recollection then is followed by a continuation in the past
tense when Jane-narrator continues the flashback of Jane-character. This past tense marks a
separation from Rochester, after the present tense of the flashback, from 30 to 34, had insisted
upon their closeness despite Jane’s attempts not to look at him (30-34). This past tense then
continues all the way until Jane-narrator quotes Jane-character, and in doing so, returns to a
present tense: “’He is not to them what he is to me,’ I thought, ‘he is ... I think I must love
him’” (78-93). The present tense is contained inside the past tense, Jane-character quoted by
Jane-narrator. The first present tense (of the flashback) creates the illusion of her nearness to
Rochester, but her nearness was then only a memory (35-39). The second present tense (of
Jane-quoted) is her realization of their oneness and that she must love him. This analysis
should make us realize that in the present tense of Jane-narrator, she is with Rochester: they
are married. The past tense serves to recollect former times which were present times, during
which Jane was close or decided to be close, to Rochester (the flashback, the flashback inside
the flashback, the quotation of her moment of decision), but this past tense in fact is based on
a present tense where Jane is: with Rochester. The alternation of times serves to enhance the
drama of the story, which after all consists in the coming-together of Jane and Rochester,
through the numerous obstacles that lie in their respective paths.
The nature of their bond, the writing of love in 1847 by Bronte.
The inalterable reality of Jane’s attraction to Rochester rises up and changes Jane in this
passage, coming right after Chapter 16 and her drawings of the imaginary Blanche and of
herself, designed to put herself into her governess place definitively. The best laid plans of
mice and women end up being thwarted by events or realities over which one has no control:
Jane-character undergoes a sea-change in this passage as she realizes she has no choice other
than to choose, to decide, to love Rochester, which is hardly even a choice or decision insofar
as at some other level it comes from elsewhere (the double sense of “I must” as being either
autonomy – from self, I realize that I have to do this – or heteronomy – from otherness, this
action is imposed upon me and I can do nothing but passively receive it). This sea-change
(from Chapter 16 to Chapter 17) takes precisely the form of a internal struggle in the very
notion of mastery. From 31 to 34, the verbs and the adverbs with verbs attest this: “I try to
concentrate” and “I wish to think” denote what she, Jane, her self, would do, but then “I
distinctly behold” and “I inevitably recall” override the previous structure (verb + infinitive).
This power greater than the power of the self continues in 45-52, and 58-63, where
Rochester’s “attention” is “riveted” on the ladies, but “attention” was the word used for the
“ladies’ attention” to Adele, so we can guess that Rochester’s “attention” is as uninterested
and mock-serious as is the ladies’. The word “riveted” however links up with Jane’s “irids ...
fix[ed]” on R, and with her “feelings” being “fettered” in Rochester. Jane is bonded to
Rochester, and the purpose of the passage is to shift this bondage from her contractual bond to
him (Rochester as “paymaster” 85, from whom she “receives my salary” 84) to a bondage that
is largely psycho-sexual, physical and of the order of soul-mates. Surely, this is what is being
forged in the lines 46-52 (her body taking over against her mind, her “irids” becoming “the
irids” and her eyelids becoming “their lids” as if the lids belong to her eyes but not to her
mental control: “I could not ... control” (47). This visual rebellion of her body against her will
as governess, her loss of governance over her governess’ body, is easily identifiable as
psycho-sexual: “acute pleasure in looking,” “precious, yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with
a steelly point of agaony”: these fantasies foretell their sexual union as married couple, and its
consummation in the form of their children is even intimated, “germs of love” “revived, green
and strong!” (61-62), this being both a foreshadowing of Rochester’s coming back to life like
the shattered tree sprouts new sprigs of growth and of Jane’s giving birth to Rochester’s son.
Conclude on
The purpose of the passage: to cement the bond of J to R, amid a hostile world, but to leave
the nature of the bond ambiguous; the means to accomplish the purpose: split universe of
theatre (flat/ round; mock vs serious, etc); dynamic internal struggle; love in the making
And point to subsequent action of book.
Discarded notes:
Love 10, love 60, 62, 93
Mastery and freedom
Theatre and actors, Jane outside/ but Jane has most important role: interior monologue/ but
role taken by her alter ego, Rochester.
The role of “Did” as linguistic reinforcement and dramatic intensifier
Sympathy: the representation of soulmates and cueing the reader to the ineluctable ending of
the romance: their union
Symmetries: numerous figures of construction, at syntactic levels, create a split universe.
(many e.g.s, symmetries: “his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and
sweet”, etc,)