Charlotte Brontë, the author of the novel Jane Eyre, created this story of a tortured and orphaned girl—Jane, who falls quite in love with Mr. Rochester, an older man who has a secret wife on the side, a possible love child, and dates other women even as Jane is there. It isn't until Rochester has lost everything, his sight, his home, and his wife. Then its finally "equality"?
Jane is a rich young heiress, and can finally be with her older, blind, decrepite, ex-boss. Lovely.
But this story of a girlish fantasy of an older man was written hundreds of years ago by an ill young girl. Yet is this that far from the truth?
Currently, I have discovered that indeed both my friend and I are dealing with Mr. Rochesters, some several hundred years afterwards. Sure, I doubt they have a Jamaican wife named Bertha setting things on fire in their house— but this can be taken metaphorically, an ex girlfriend (perhaps a crazy one) who won't let them move on (and just as equally, they will not let go, either).
Then there's Ms. Fairfield, the older woman of the manor, who is supposedly a maid but you never know ;).
And yes, there's Ingrid, and other women who is the object of his societally approved affection—rich, beautiful.
Yeh- that leaves what is my friend and me. Jane, not the prettiest or the top dog, but a good dog. Why couldn't Brontë have written Jane to be swept away by an Italian prince who treated her well? A Shakespearean actor who quoted sonnets to her moonlit window? Even a hardworking village man, who loved her dearly?
Clearly Brontë knew more than we sometimes give her credit for. Maybe Brontë knew that the complicated men are the most rewarding?
Alas, it seems, I always end up with a temporary Rochester, but never a prince charming.
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