Line #8 Headscratchers/JaneEyre


1	!!Nineteenth-Century Divorces
2	* Why did not Mr. Rochester just get a divorce, or perhaps annulment? Yes, it had to be granted by an Act of Parliament. Was he not rich and influential enough to get an MP to introduce a Private Members Bill? The obvious insanity would make an easy bill to pass? Here is a blog entry on the issue: [[http://margaretmoore.blogspot.com/2007/01/jane-eyre-divorce-and-needs-of-author.html]]
3	** Mr. Rochester states in the book that he couldn't divorce her precisely because she ''was'' insane.
4	** The implication might have been that his wife's family was richer and more influential than he was.
5	** Insanity wasn't legal grounds for divorce, probably something to do with "in sickness and in health". There's an Agatha Christie novel written a hundred years later where one character ''still'' can't get a divorce because his wife is insane. Acts of Parliament were really not that easy to get passed. For starters, they were very expensive and, secondly, they were not really for the likes of people like Rochester, who might be gentry but sure as hell isn't an aristocrat. (Think of the difference in social status between Gilbert Markham and Arthur Huntingdon in ''Literature/TheTenantOfWildfellHall''.) Even then, there were a lot of aristocratic marriages in the period who basically agreed to live separately and have lovers, because getting a divorce was just ''that much'' of a problem, and that's before you even get into the stigma of it all.
6	*** Yep, insanity wasn't grounds for divorce, and furthermore--since the insane spouse would never be able to provide viable grounds--bound the sane half of the couple into what could become decades of solitary misery. This actually led to a weird co-incidence when Charlotte Bronte dedicated the first edition of her novel to William Thackeray (then at the height of "Vanity Fair" fame) solely because she admired his work. Thing was, it was common knowledge to everyone except sheltered Charlotte that Thackeray's wife was also hopelessly insane. Whereupon society at large gleefully assumed that ''Jane Eyre'''s mysteriously pseudonymed author ''must'' be hinting either that Rochester was a particularly heartless riff on Thackeray or that s/he was his mistress, or of course both. Bronte was horrified when she found out and made it clear in subsequent editions that no such relationship existed.
7	** Adding to this, while divorces weren't quite commonplace at the time and had to be granted in extra exceptional circumstances (like for adultery), they were even less common among the wealthier (not the wealthiest but I figure gentries were quite wealthy). On top of this, besides societal expectations, divorces were pretty scandalous, so his reputation might have been more at stake.
8	** Also, even if we grant the possibility, getting a divorce granted by Act of Parliament is both (a) still not exactly easy (rich or not, you still have to, well, persuade a majority of both Houses of Parliament to agree that you should be allowed to divorce, an arduous and time-consuming process at the best of times) and (b) is a very public process. Rochester would essentially have to consent to having his dirty laundry aired in public through the democratic forum of the nation, with the result possibly being that the act might not get passed anyway. Given that he tends to be somewhat reserved and secretive, it is not a huge surprise that he might not be willing to do that.
9	----
10	!!Return to Lowood
11	* Why didn't Jane go to Lowood or the Reeds' after her marriage failed? Both places would have let her stay long enough to advertise for a new job.
12	** Because she was incredibly distressed and obviously not thinking straight? Because the Reeds' was a place of utter torment? Because Lowood might not be particularly welcoming to an ex-pupil who has left her place of employment under suspicious circumstances? Because she doesn't have an A to Z map, or any means of transport, and is a woman totally without friends and money, and therefore vulnerable and powerless?
13	** "The Reeds' was a place of utter torment." As well, she mentions that after John Reed's death, Eliza went into a convent and Georgiana took up a high-living life, eventually marrying. If Jane had gone to Gateshead, there might not have been anyone there to help, even if they were inclined to.
14	** The real reason is probably that Jane knew those would be the first places Rochester would look, and she wanted to escape him entirely.
15	----
16	!!Why didn't she go to Ms. Temple?
17	* Why doesn't Jane go to her former teacher and dear friend Miss Temple, now Mrs Nasmyth? They were close and they probably corresponded. Jane was carrying a letter to post after all when she met Mr Rochester. Surely Reverend's wife and her particular friend could offer her a room for some time and help to find her a new employment.
18	** She's not exactly thinking straight, she ran away on impulse before thinking everything through, as such she set up a chain of events, by the time she got to a point where she could break the chain, she had already been offered residence and a job, so by that point there wouldn't be much point.
19	** Jane mentions after Miss Temple gets married something along the lines of “I lost her.” Apparently they lost touch with each other at some point; Jane does not seem to know where she is.
20	----
21	!!Shouldn't he just ship her off elsewhere?
22	* Why would Mr Rochester keep Bertha in the very same house where his ward and a bunch of servants live? He knows she's dangerous. He says he doesn't want her to get sick and die because of damp environment in his other house, but couldn't he keep her in a cottage house somewhere with just Mrs Pool? Madwoman in the Attic is the essence of Gothic novel and there is a RuleOfDrama, but this is definitely a plot hole.
23	** One more person is easier to hide from the public in a large establishment. And everyone is a servant or dependent of Rochester, so it's not a big deal if they suspect what's going on.
24	** Adding to this, locking her away in the attic was the most ''humane'' thing to do, as mental homes back then were BedlamHouse\|s. There was a progressive movement in the treatment of mental illness and nicer asylums at the time (the inspiration for the Kirkbride asylums in the U.S.), but this was just getting started in the 1840s.
25	** If she was in a cottage near a hamlet or village, it would be small enough that Bertha could easily leave the house altogether and injure civilians/burn entire buildings down if Mrs Poole were unconscious, which would by extension be Mr Rochester's fault for not taking the appropriate steps to restrain her. If it were a cottage in the woods, escape would mean dying of exposure or starvation in the wilderness.
26	** Rochester clearly feels great guilt at what happened with Bertha. Presumably he has simply decided that setting her up in (relative) comfort in his palatial family estate rather than dumping her off somewhere else is the least he can do for her, and feels that any danger to himself is worth it in order to satisfy his sense of honour. Remember also that it is only relatively recently that both Adele, and consequently Jane, have moved into the estate and he spent long periods travelling away from home, so was not around to excite her passions for any meaningful period of time. Presumably Bertha was relatively little trouble to anyone prior to the events of the novel, and it is only recently that events have aligned in order to make her so.
27	----
28	!!Helen's sickness
29	* No one at Lowood shows any signs of having consumption other than Helen. TB is contagious and is spread by air. The school would be a prime environment for this to spread, but literally no one else gets it. If Helen hasn't left the school in a very long time, how would she have contracted it in the first place?
30	** TB can be 'dormant' for years before a person actually begins showing symptoms. Keeping that in mind, who knows if she actually ''did'' pass it on to anyone else at the school, who just didn't figure it out until years later? The real question is how the hell ''Jane'' avoided it, since the two were often in such close contact with one another.
31	*** Some people have a natural immunity to TB. Jane might well be immune and since she hadn't been at Lowood as long, the malnutrition might not have weakened her as much as the other pupils yet, hence why she also avoided the Typhus.
32	** When I first read it, I thought Helen really died because of complications with typhus. That aside, some forms of TB are more contagious than others and, if I had to guess, Helen died just as she was showing symptoms, thus she probably didn't really live long enough to spread it.
33	*** She was showing symptoms right from the time before Miss Temple invited her and Jane to tea. Miss Temple asks her how her cough is going/if it's gotten worse and begins crying when Helen leaves because she knows she won't live much longer.
34	*** Let's also not forget the possibility of girls dying of typhus before they could have shown symptoms of TB.
35	*** And of course at the real Lowood, Clergy Daughters School, several other girls ''did'' die of TB around the same time.
36	----
37	!!Mrs. Reed is a spiteful, isn't she?
38	* Why didn't Mrs. Reed allow Jane to go live with her uncle John?
39	** I get that it was out of spite because Jane rightfully called her out and for plot purposes, but Mrs. Reed had a great chance to be rid of Jane, whom she finds an "burden" and Jane could've been with an nicer part of her family. Did Mrs. Reed still felt grudgingly compelled to honor her late husband's wishes? Or did she get some sick, twisted kick of reminding her that she doesn't amount to anything.
40	** Ironic, Mrs. Reed always sensed/knew that her husband loved Jane, the sickly, dependent niece of his good-for-nothing sister, more than he loved his own children by her (Mrs. Reed). ''That'' was what spurred Mrs. Reed on, way past ordinary spite. She resents Jane for getting any love that could have gone to Mrs. Reed or her children. Also, the Reed children are, to a one, terribly unbalanced people, and it follows that Mrs. Reed may not have been particularly stable or logical at that point in her life.
41	*** Some parts of the story imply that they didn't know she existed, then again, it's possible Mrs. Reeds (being the spiteful thing she was) probably told them she was shipped off, died, or what have you.
42	*** Her deathbed confession was that she'd been literally horrified by Jane's having called her out on her abusive behavior. It wouldn't even have occurred to most children to think, let alone say anything like that at the time, especially since Jane had been taking all this shit silently for nine years. Mrs. Reed says it was as if she'd beaten an animal and it had looked up at her with human eyes and cursed her. Instead of feeling guilty, she thought of Jane as a demon, or anyway unnatural. The last thing she wanted was to think of Jane ending up with any sort of comfort or love.
43	*** If I remember right, on her deathbed, Mrs. Reed admits that by the time Jane's uncle John tracked Jane down enough to send a letter to the Reed family for her, Jane was already in Lowood and Mrs. Reed told him she died (and proceeded to keep the fact they even asked from Jane) in the typhus outbreak out of spite.
44	** In short: Mrs. Reed is a cruel, spiteful asshole with a special animus against her niece. She wants Jane to suffer and be alone in the world.

Context Headscratchers / JaneEyre