“It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to make me happy; I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely place--such as the moon, for instance--and it nodded its head towards her horn, rising over Hay Hill; it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live.”
Jane’s engagement to Mr. Rochester comes as a complete surprise to everyone at Thornfield Hall, including Adele. When the child asks questions of the relationship, this is a portion of the answer she gets. This answer, of course, is purely nonsensical, and it says quite a bit about the way Mr. Rochester sees Jane. Obviously, he sees her as a fairy, less of a person and more of a beautiful thing to make him happy, even going so far as to use “it” to describe her. However, it goes even deeper than that.
The first section, while infused with fantastical terminology, is pretty much what happened. Jane arrives from a very long distance away from Thornfield Hall, and her purpose is to serve the master of the house by teaching his ward. Therefore, she has come from Elf Land to make him happy. The rest, to an extent, has some thread of accuracy. After all, Jane did say that her home is wherever Mr. Rochester is, which means that Thornfield has become a lonely place, out of the common world. In addition, because of Jane’s evident excitement at traveling through Europe with him, the places they will visit can be seen as the moon as well. They are so far for Jane, and so uncharted and mysterious, that there is little difference between them anyway.
Mr. Rochester, then, really isn’t lying--just putting a mythological spin on what truly happened. He does something else interesting, though, and that is putting the fairy in the dominant role of the situation. Throughout their relationship, and especially during their proposal, Mr. Rochester has assumed a large air of dominance over Jane, as her boss and as her intellectual superior. In his version of the story, though, he switches their usual roles. Is he trying to make Jane look more powerful than she is? Is he trying to make himself look worse? Is this actually how he views what happened? In any case, the male/female power balance is being shifted in an usual way, and Mr. Rochester is definitely doing it on purpose.
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ReplyDeleteThis is a really unique and interesting post. I would have never come up with this connection between the fairy and Jane's actual situation and circumstances which brought her to Thornfield. I like how you brought Adele into this post as I feel like she is sometimes a forgotten character. Your controlled, but slightly informal tone and diction is perfect for this post. Nice job !
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting. I certainly did not make all of these connections while reading this passage. I really liked how simple you made the connections to Jane as the fairy and Thornfield as her home seem to the reader. You also make it clear that Rochester is asserting his dominance over Jane in this passage and insinuating that she is more of a pretty object than a person to him. This is a really clear and thought out post. Good job!
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