Mr. Rochester versus The Man

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Mr. Rochester vs. The Man

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte and Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys are novels with an obvious connection, however, this connection is not definite one. The main male character’s name in Jane Eyre is Mr. Rochester who has a very mysterious history in the Caribbean while The Man in Wide Sargasso Sea moves to the Caribbean after living in England for his entire life. Jean Rhys never states that the two men are the same, but the similarities between the two lead the reader to believe it is so.

Jane Eyre (1847) is about a young woman named Jane Eyre who is hired as a governess at Mr. Rochester’s estate, Thornfield, to take care of Adele, a young girl he adopted. When Jane arrives at Thornfield and begins to meet the staff, she finds that the master of the house, Mr. Rochester, is not there. Mr. Rochester is a mysterious man from the beginning. Throughout the novel, the reader, along with the main characters, know that Rochester is keeping a secret, but have little clue as to what it is. The reader, along with Jane, begin to learn more and more about Rochester and his past. He spends much of younger life running around Europe and later learns from Mr. Mason, an old friend of Rochester’s, that Mr. Rochester once lived in the West Indies. The West Indies is where Mr. Mason knows him from. “Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanishtown, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he has there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester.” (Bronte, 194) When Rochester finds that Mr. Mason has arrived, he becomes troubled, which leads Jane to worry more about the secret he is keeping from her.

Later, the story becomes mo...

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...ain characters in each novel. Although the novels are written by two different women at two very different times, there is a strong connection between the two men.

Throughout Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys does not ever call The Man, Mr. Rochester. Also, in Jane Eyre, Rochester’s wife is only referred to as Bertha; obviously, Wide Sargasso Sea was not written before Jane Eyre was, so Bertha could not have had any other name. Rhys’ interpretation of Rochester and Bertha’s past is exactly that, her interpretation. She wrote the novel purely from her imagination of what Rochester and Bertha’s lives were like when they did reside in the Caribbean. Both novels give insight to the other; not only in character development, but in plot development. The two men are so strikingly similar that the reader cannot help but decipher that Rhys directly connected to Jane Eyre.

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