mr rochester: because she's so delicate and beautiful and ethereal and--

jane, not bothering to look up from her book: adele, it's really because i'm short. mr rochester is simply sugarcoating facts with fiction.

In a post I made, I mentioned that Céline Varens (mother of Adèle Varens) was dead, and someone (@thoumpingground, thank you!) replied with how they thought Céline had just ran away with a musician and never actually been pronounced dead. This led me to wonder, because a lot of the criticism and essays I've read repeat the idea that Adèle is an orphan and/or that her mother died, and I myself could have sworn her mother died of consumption or typhus. But no! I went on the Internet Archive and re-read passages about Rochester and the Varens, did a deep reading, and came to other conclusions which totally changed my understanding of these characters. Below I try to untangle and assess this apparently common confusion.

Here are the details I've gathered: 1) Adèle tells Jane only that her mother died, 2) Rochester tells Jane only that Adèle's mother abandoned her. I originally believed that she died after the abandonment, but it seems more likely that 3) Rochester must have told Adèle that her mother died because it was easier than explaining the abandonment. 4) Neither Rochester nor Jane believe that Adèle is his biological child, and no biological father ever claimed her, making Adèle paternally as well as maternally abandoned. 5) After Rochester tells her the story of Adèle, Jane calls Adèle an orphan like herself, not because she believes Adèle's parents are dead, but because she's likening abandonment to orphaning.

I believe that Rochester's probable lie to Adèle is fully in line with his character because the entire plot of the novel largely hinges on his repetitive deceptiveness. His love for toying with the truth, combined with his flair for the dramatic and his passionate feelings of betrayal at the hands of Céline, render it easy to believe that he would've seen Céline's abandonment and infidelity as her being metaphorically "dead" to him. As Rochester often conflates feelings and facts, and continuously blurs the lines between fiction and reality (every other line he's mentioning elves and mermaids), he wouldn't have seen him calling Céline dead as being a complete lie, and this is what makes it more believable to me.

Rochester usually believes his own lies to some extent or is able to justify them. His talent at deception a major attribute (and flaw) of his, as well as something we readers are constantly left to debate the morality of; this is made more complex by most of his lies being understandable or sympathizable, even if sometimes ridiculous. This is what makes him an appealing character.

He imitates a fortune teller on the basis of fortune telling being inherently deceptive anyway (as Jane states). He dons this disguise to break-up with Blanche while uncovering her true motives and protecting her feelings in the process, as well as to try to covertly assess the truth of Jane's feelings and to reveal his own.

He claims to be a bachelor and tries to get remarried because he felt like Bertha had already been metaphorically and spiritually divorced from him a long time ago, if not in actuality. He deceptively hides in Céline's room in order to ascertain what he already knows to be the truth and to convenienly confront her. Céline's larger deception allows him to feel that his own one is justifiable. He also deceives Jane when they first meet by failing to inform her of his identity, but he doesn't assume a false identity, either, complicating this lie as well.

He leads everyone (but most importantly, Jane) to believe he's planning to marry Blanche even after we can tell that he's really planning to marry Jane. This again is a sort of half-lie in his eyes, because he truly did plan on getting remarried to someone.

I also have a theory that Rochester really did plan on marrying Blanche before deciding to propose to Jane, considering that: 1) we're told by Mrs. Fairfax that Rochester and Blanche had flirted before Jane was in the picture; 2) Rochester says that Blanche resembles Bertha, who he said he married because he was attracted to her; 3) it wouldn't make sense that Rochester would go through so much trouble to lead Blanche on solely to make Jane jealous, especially not when we know he had set his sights on Blanche before he knew Jane and prizes constancy in affection above all else; 4) Blanche's character specifically matches that of all his other past lovers (in short, more beautiful on the outside than the inside) which supports the idea that his attraction to her and intention to marry her was actually genuine at first.

In short, all Rochester's lies are omissions or half-truths, always justifiable in his eyes because they're performed to protect himself, or others, or as a method of assessing the truth. He follows an odd set of rules regarding deception, and this is in line with the strong fae/folklore/trickster themes of the novel which many academics have noted. I don't believe he ever deceives carelessly, on a whim, or in order to be purely cruel.

Adèle informs Jane that her mother has gone to heaven, so evidently she has been told so by someone. I also believe his probable lie to Adèle is important because it is more proof that he truly does care about her beneath his reluctance to love her due to her similarity to her mother.

I can imagine Rochester sitting her on his knee and explaining this to her much like he later explains to her in the carrage of his and Jane's elvish, honey-"moon" adventure tale. Despite openly criticizing her and her mother, Rochester still doesn't want Adèle to have abandonment issues, to feel lonely, or to break her heart by ruining the good memories of her mother which she so clearly covets, as seen by her proud presentations of the song, poetry, and dance she says her mother taught her.

I don't know why adaptations haven't banked on these points, since Rochester's relationship with Adèle is one of his most redeeming qualities, even despite his occasional coldness to her. The 1996 version is great because out of all the adaptations I've seen or read about (not all of them because there are a million), it has the most emphasis on Adèle and her relationships.

1996 also keeps the line about her mother going to the Holy Virgin, and we get the impression that she was raised by her mother, whereas in the 2006 BBC adaptation for example, we're shown that Adèle was left to Rochester in her crib, yet Rochester still says Adèle inherited her mother's bad "French" attributes, which from his perspective must be genetic.

All the Rochester's question Adèle's nature v nurture attributes to some extent, but choosing to give Adèle no memories of her mother as the 2006 does kind of changes the Adèle/Céline discourse to being more genetic in basis. In other words, the 2006 focus is more on questioning nature rather than nurture, whereas other versions focus on both, or focus on nurture.

All the Rochester's speculations on Adèle's genetics keeps in line with 19-century anti-French British sentiment, and the increasing Victorian "nature vs nurture" discourse. For 2006 Rochester specifically, this all fits with his interest in biology & nature -- his specimen collection, him helping with Adèle's lessons, his scientist friend, the twin/twin flame theories; all 2006 inventions which clearly have a lot of historical and textual basis. However, in all the versions, it seems Adèle's vanity and "French defects" (as Jane dubs them in the book) whether genetically or socially imbued, exist to emphasize how nurture is just as important as nature.

Bertha Mason and John Reed exist as examples of ill nature overpowering weak nurturing, whereas Jane Eyre and Adèle Varens are examples of undecided nature strengthening in resolve after an upgrade of nurturing. For Jane this was through Bessie, Miss Temple, Helen Burns, and Mrs. Fairfax. For Adèle it was Mrs. Fairfax, Jane, and then Jane sending her to a good school which she says at the end of the book was responsible for turning Adèle into a great person.

But there is also an emphasis on the willpower of Jane and Adèle, as there is for Edward Rochester, who we learn from his account probably had poor nurturing, as he says his father and brother tricked him into marrying Bertha. As an aside: the 1996 version really emphasizes the implication that Rochester's dad and brother sucked, which I agree with, but I think it's also part of the problem of this film making Rochester a little too sympathetic (lol).

It makes sense that in the book Adèle had apparently been old enough to actually remember being socialized by her mother and therefore had been more capable of absorbing her mother's character. Perhaps 2006's approach is more intelligent, as it leaves the theory of nature v nurture more up for debate just like Adèle's parentage is (though Jane and Rochester are decided against his paternity, we have no way of ascertaining it).

I wish we had been able to see or hear more about Céline interacting with Adèle, as it would have explained how Adèle came to love the performing arts and to worship fashionable ladies. In the book, this is essentially her clinging to memories of her mother, which are later replaced by Jane's influence.