Introduction

68
Vanessa Mangione
“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless
and heartless? You think wrong! − I have as much soul as you,− and full as
much heart! […] I am not talking to you through the medium of custom,
conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh − it is my spirit that addresses
your spirit; just if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at
God’s feet as equal, − as we are!”
“As we are!” repeated Mr Rochester. (222)
Rochester replies likewise by throwing away all pretences and confesses his love
for her. The rhetoric of equality that is developed is based rather on a spiritual
basis than a sexual one. Whereas he tried through his first marriage to comply
with the symbolic and to gain status and money, his behaviour now suggests that
this second marriage attempt is instructed by the semiotic and is based on love, a
love which might redeem him from his inner pain.
Soon after his affirmation of equality however, his talk changes into the
rhetoric of enslavement. In his intention of loading Jane with all of his family
jewels and other treasuries, Lambert sees a metaphor for a “threatened submergence
of Jane’s identity in his” (111). His behaviour suggests that Jane cannot
become his equal, and what formerly drew him to her, her frankness and independent
spirit, he now tries to oppress by treating her as his property.
“I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on
your forehead, – which it will become: for nature, at least, has stamped her
patent of nobility on his brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets on these
fine wrists, and load the fairy-like fingers with rings […] I will make the
world acknowledge you as a beauty too.” (227)
But Jane vehemently denounces this new behaviour of his, of him trying to turn
her into his possession by referring to his former affair: “Do you remember what
you said of Céline Varens? − of the diamonds, the cashmeres you gave her? I will
not be your English Céline Varens.” (237). She insists on being and staying herself;
plain Jane, the governess (237), however, she comes dangerously close to
losing her own identity and integrity.
As Maynard points out, Rochester’s sexuality is of a “direct and responsive nature”
(110) which Jane has difficulties to resist. It becomes more and more overwhelming
and Jane struggles to keep him at a distance. His Byronic character
emerges once again after the failed marriage ceremony when he glares at the battlements
of Thornfield and declares that he will seize happiness even if it means to
write his own law. His Byronic character however, does not define his ultimate
nature but provides a colour and excitement to his personality. His Byronic overreaching
derives not from a need to carry a bleeding conscience, but from an intense
need to have a fulfilled relationship with Jane. All of his former sins derive
from sexual needs; the novel shows his weakness and vulnerability, he is sexually