Mr. Rochester
- In full:
- Edward Fairfax Rochester
Mr. Rochester, fictional character in English novelist Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre (1847). The brooding and tormented master of Thornfield Hall, he falls in love with and is loved by the eponymous heroine Jane Eyre. Rochester is regarded as among the greatest literary romantic heroes.
In Jane Eyre
Edward Rochester, referred to as Mr. Rochester or simply Rochester, is the wealthy employer of Jane Eyre, who is governess to Adele, Rochester’s ward and the daughter of his former lover. Rochester falls in love with Jane (and she with him) after she rescues him when his bedroom curtains catch fire. He is expected to marry the beautiful but shallow Blanche Ingram, who is Jane’s social superior. However, Rochester starts a rumor that implies he is not as rich as he seems and the mercenary Blanche is dissuaded from marrying him. He proposes to Jane and is accepted.
“Jane! Jane! Jane!”
Jane Eyre is about to accept her cousin St. John Rivers’s proposal of marriage (and travel to India) when she hears, or thinks she hears, a voice calling her name. She instantly knows it to be a “known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester.”
An insurmountable obstacle presents itself on their wedding day—Rochester is a man with a secret: he is already married. A devastated Jane discovers the existence of Bertha Mason, Rochester’s wife (described in the book as a “mad-woman”), whom he has confined to the attic of Thornfield Hall. Jane flees and considers accompanying her missionary cousin, St. John Rivers, to India.
In the end, she returns to Rochester after discovering that Thornfield Hall was destroyed after being set on fire by Bertha, who died by suicide. Rochester was blinded in the fire and is a wreck of his former self. The concluding chapter of the novel famously begins with this sentence from Jane:
Reader, I married him.
Character appraisal
Rochester is counted among the Byronic heroes of literature, who are flawed male protagonists made popular in the writings of Lord Byron. Like other Byronic heroes, Rochester is charismatic, courageous, and intelligent yet brooding, conflicted, and arrogant. He is capable of extreme deception, given to self-pity, and portrayed as moody and unpredictable. Yet, despite his willingness to enter a bigamous marriage with Jane, he is presented as essentially a man of honor and integrity. He believes that he was tricked into marrying the mentally unstable Bertha and is eventually maimed and blinded by refusing to leave the blazing Thornfield Hall before seeing his staff to safety.
Adaptations
Rochester appears in Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Jean Rhys’s novel that presents a version of events from the point of view of and sympathetic to the unfortunate Bertha Mason (named Antoinette in the book). Jane Eyre has been adapted for screen and television numerous times. Notable among these are a 1943 Hollywood production starring Joan Fontaine as Jane and Orson Welles as Rochester, a 2006 BBC series with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens in the main roles, and a 2011 film starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender as Jane and Rochester.
