Jane Eyre/YMMV: Difference between revisions

* [[Values Dissonance]]. Possibly the most blindingly obvious instance in 19th century English literature. Bertha Mason is shown as being ''evil beyond redemption'' because she is {{spoiler|insane}}. Worse, the very first really humane {{spoiler|asylums for the mentally ill}} were being opened at the time and place the book is set (Yorkshire in the 1810-1820 period). Rochester could have afforded {{spoiler|to send Bertha to one}} out of his pocket change with nobody knowing who she was. Yet he instead {{spoiler|kept her hidden in his decrepit attic in rags with only a drunken slattern as company, quite possibly a fate worse than death}}. Jane's acceptance of this explanation shows that she (and her author) were out of touch with the times: during the Enlightenment people started to reject the idea that {{spoiler|people who were insane were morally degenerate and evil and that it was an illness that should be treated, however bizarre the treatments occasionally became}}.

** It's actually [[Moral Dissonance]], internal to the novel, if you read some of the Brontë sisters' social essays. You have to keep in mind that [[Designated Hero|Rochester is explicitly pretty much evil]] for most of the novel.

{{quote| {{spoiler|"Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate -- with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel -- she cannot help being mad."}}}}

** Rochester insists that he doesn't {{spoiler|hate Bertha because she's ''mad'', she was just (apparently, if you believe him) that wicked.}}

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[[Category:Jane Eyre]]