Jane Eyre (Grades 9–1) York Notes

In this passage Jane meets Mr Rochester for the first time. As he rides past her on a country lane, his horse stumbles and he falls from it. This is important to the novel as it shows that in Jane’s presence Mr Rochester can be weaker than he would like to be.

When Jane looks at him and describes him she says that he seems dark and angry. ‘He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now’. This suggests that Rochester is an angry man and also that he is not that attractive. Jane is not frightened that he looks ‘ireful’ though and carries on looking at him, which shows that she is interested in him and might be attracted to him.

Rochester is not polite to Jane. It says that he is rude to her; ‘the frown, the roughness’. This shows that Mr Rochester is not a polite person generally even when he is talking to a woman who he has never seen before. This might be because he has fallen from his horse so is shocked or hurt, but it also shows that he is usually not very polite or gentle in the way he speaks to people.

Jane is not frightened of him because he is not like a gentleman and isn’t handsome. She describes his face having ‘stern features and a heavy brow’ but isn’t put off by this because she would have felt more shy around someone handsome. This is because Jane doesn’t have much experience of meeting men as she has been at an all girls’ school all her life.

In the rest of the book Brontë presents Mr Rochester as a powerful man and very unhappy. He spends a lot of time away from home and this is because he is trying to forget the burden of his wife Bertha. However, he does look after her even though he is unhappy and was tricked into marrying her by his family. He doesn’t have her shut away in an institution and this shows that he takes his responsibilities seriously.

When Rochester falls in love with Jane, Brontë shows that he is sensitive and intelligent. Jane doesn’t realise at first that he is in love with her but Brontë shows the reader that he has strong feelings for Jane, such as the night of the fire when Jane saves him and he doesn’t want her to leave him. It is also shown when Jane asks to go back to see her aunt and Rochester doesn’t want to let her go.

Therefore this extract shows that Rochester has a dark side and is not like a typical gentleman of the time. He is not particularly handsome and isn’t particularly polite. However, Jane sees through all this and feels a connection to him right from the start.