What makes Rochester
such a distinctive hero?
When Rochester arrives at Thornfield on a “tall
steed” whose “rude noise” breaks the evening calm,
accompanied by a “great dog” – “a lion-like creature
with long hair and a huge head” (12) – he thunders
into Jane’s life as if destined to fulfil his role as
powerful masculine incumbent of secluded,
brooding Thornfield, with its “chill and vault-like
air”, “dark and spacious staircase”, “long cold
gallery” and “wide hall” hung with likenesses of
“grim” personages and an oak-carved ebony clock.
The “narrow, low, dim passage” of the third storey
strikes Jane as resembling “a corridor in some
Bluebeard’s castle”; and here, while Jane’s
imagination prepares itself for a creature from fairy
tale – “As this horse approached… I remembered
certain of Bessie’s tales wherein figured a North-of-
England spirit” – the villain-hero himself seems
about to appear through the dusk.
