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Mr. Rochester In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

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Jane Eyre is a book about mind over heart, a lot of the time. But this is not the case with all characters, namely, Mr. Edward Rochester of Thornfield, he is a very flawed character. One of these flaws is that Mr. Rochester is something of a habitual liar or a secretive person. Not with little things, but big plot points in this can be contributed to Rochester lying about his life to, the unfortunate recipient Jane. Mr. Rochester’s motives for lying are usually for his own personal gain. He lies to Jane twice in this story (that are important to the overall plot/storyline). Once is when he wants to make her jealous by saying he’ll marry Blanche Ingram, and then the second time is about having a wife when he’s planning to marry Jane, Bertha …show more content…

His motives are purely to trick Jane into marrying him even though he is already married. It’s worse than the first lie as this is committing bigamy, which is a crime. Now it’s not all terrible. It can easy to empathize with and see Mr. Rochester’s side, as he can’t get a divorce because his wife is insane. Also, he truly loves Jane, and she loves him too, so he’s not manipulating her into marrying him. It’s just that he kept a giant secret from her that challenged moral integrities; and Jane is a very morally conscious person. Mr. Rochester had to know if he mentioned it earlier Jane would’ve run away and thought him a bad person, which she ended up doing after the wedding. You could argue that he wasn’t technically lying about Bertha, he just didn’t tell her. On the contrary to that, Jane does see Bertha, and thinks it’s Grace Poole, multiple time even. Mr. Rochester does nothing to correct her he even encourages her thoughts on the matter. When she asks about “Grace Poole” he always keeps his answers distant and almost open for interpretation. He has never thought of what to do if she found out, he just planned to hide it from her forever. His dramatics about the situation almost sets up Jane’s dramatic leave from Thornfield. As if she feels she needs to make a point so he can

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