Jane Eyre Comparison Essay

Writers often use characters to represent a theme in a literary work or novel. Authors meticulously create characters to portray specific meanings and to highlight key factors about other characters in each book. Authors create antagonistic characters to highlight characteristics of the main characters. While protagonists are used to show how characters are the same, antagonists show how characters are different. In the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Bertha Mason is an antagonistic character to Jane Eyre because the characteristics Bertha possesses enhance the reader’s view of Jane Eyre’s qualities.

When compared to Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason represents Mr. Rochester’s faults, failures, and mistakes. Mr. Rochester married Bertha Mason

Jane is everything Mr. Rochester wants from a marriage. Rochester compares the two women as he states, “compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder- this face with that mask- this form with that bulk” (845). In this excerpt from the novel Mr. Rochester describes the physical differences between the two women; however, the reader can infer that Rochester values Jane for more than just her physical appearance. Rochester describes Jane with having “clear eyes” indicating Jane’s capability of in-depth thinking. Jane is intelligent and inspires heated conversation between her and Rochester. Rochester falls in love with Jane because she is his equal, ‘“my bride is here’, he said again drawing me to him, ‘because my equal is here, and my likeness’” (816). Bertha was never capable of challenging Rochester’s intelligence. Mr. Rochester wants to marry Jane for love, but he also wants to marry her because she is a representation of an ideal woman of this era. In the eighteen-hundreds women were expected to cook, clean, take care of children, and obey their husbands. Rochester’s first wife was incapable of fulfilling these duties; thus, Jane was depicted as a woman who was more than capable of fulfilling her duties as a wife to Rochester. Jane is also shown as an opposite to Bertha because Rochester married Bertha for money and social

From this excerpt from the novel, the reader can infer that Jane believes that if a woman is restrained she will lose a part of herself. Bertha represents women in the nineteenth century who were stifled because of their husbands’ ability to rule over them. Bertha represents a woman who fully depends on her husband for everything, while Jane represents a woman who loves a man, but is not fully dependent upon him for