How Does Bronte Present Rochester As A Byronic Hero

In the novel Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Bronte creates a character, Edward Rochester who embodies the typical Byronic Hero. Bronte is able to illustrate this embodiment through characteristics of sinful rebellious acts, constant moodiness, and his attributes as a wanderer. Bronte uses Rochester’s qualities and misfortunes in order to show how a protagonist can be portrayed as an English heroic hero but also have its downfalls as an “other”. Bronte uses unnamed sexual crimes and rebellious attributes to portray Rochester as a character who is burdened with sins of his past. Rochester chooses to reject his wife due to her insanity. He locks his wife in his own home where she stays hidden and unknown. The reader can see Rochester showing his attempt to try to bury his past when he states, “Far from desiring to publish the connection, I became anxious to conceal it… and saw her safely lodged in that third story room of whose secret cabinet she has now for 10 years made a wild beast’s den” (394). He calls his wife a beast, saying that she is not a human, but rather an animal, which he can just easily store away. By repressing her into his home, he believes he can’t be held responsible for her and denies that he is even married anymore. Not only does he exile his wife from his life and her own, but by doing so, he is committing a sexual crime. “Bigamy is an ugly word!- I meant, however to be a bigamist: but fate has outmaneuvered me; or providence has checked me” (288). He