In the novel Jane Eyre, Adèle’s role is more important than simply being the initial reason that Jane Eyre comes to Thornfield. Adèle’s character seems so simple that most critics of Jane Eyre have almost completely ignored her significance in the novel. Although Adèle lacks a certain complexity portrayed in characters such as Jane Eyre, Rochester, and Bertha, a more critical approach will reveal that she does have more significance within Jane’s narrative than what immediately appears on the surface.
Childhood and school-life are two aspects of Victorian life that are continually discussed as a minor topic within the novel. Mary Ward raises the question about why “in the early scenes of childhood and school-life…the conventional solution, the conventional softening, the conventional prettiness or quaintness…never comes” (55). Ward goes on to explain her point using examples like “Jane, the little helpless child, is never comforted” and “Mrs. Reid, the cruel aunt, is never sorry for her cruelties” (55). Ward uses these examples to show how, in these early scenes and in Jane’s childhood, conventional or traditional patterns found in the lives of most Victorian children (such as the Reed children) are not found in Jane’s life.
However, Ward does not discuss Adèle’s significance or how Adèle’s childhood and school-life serve as a contrast to those of Jane because Adèle is educated by Jane who came from such a different background. In other words, there is a mixing of “conventional” childhood and school-life with a non-conventional educator, which could be seen as an unlikely match during the Victorian time period. Yet as further examples will show, Adèle loves and accepts Jane as her friend, mother-figure, and teacher. Rochester likewise accepts the match even though he appears to be such a conventional type of man that it might not initially seem like he would not approve of Adèle’s education begotten by a non-conventional governess. Ward might have noted such observances when she says “Jane Eyre has…that perpetual magic of the unexpected {as in the unlikely match of a conventional student and unconventional governess} which overrides a thousand faults…” (55).
One of Adèle’s major roles is that her personality serves as a comparison as well as a contrast with Jane’s personality and character. Adèle is free-spirited, easily distracted (not as dedicated to education as Jane was), playful, loquacious, and spoiled. She is appropriately labeled by a critic (Sandra Gilbert) as well as by a character in the novel (Blanche Ingram) as Rochester’s “doll” (Gilbert 486). Adèle is treated like a doll in that she is dressed and pampered by Rochester and the servants, and her every need is met without any neglect. Jane, however, resists being treated like a doll because she is striving for independence rather than to blend in with the social norms by letting Rochester dress her in fancy clothing before the wedding. The difference in reaction to being treated like a doll may be due to their different backgrounds: Adèle is from a wealthy family and has a father taking care of her while Jane is from a poor family in which both parents are dead, leaving Jane on her own as a child. As opposed to Adèle, Jane is somewhat solemn, dedicated to education and work, quick-witted, relatively quiet, neglected as a child, and has a repressed spirit. Adèle seems to dote on attention from others, such as Rochester, Jane, the Victorian ladies and gentlemen; similarly, Jane yearns for and constantly seeks love, a sense of belonging, and a sense of being valued.
In addition to the similarities and differences in Adèle’s and Jane’s personalities, Adèle’s background and past can be compared and contrasted with those of Jane. Both had a caretaker who was seemingly ashamed of them during their childhood, while neither child was to blame for such a misfortune. Jane was scorned, treated indifferently, proclaimed by one of the servants as “less than a servant” (Brontë 9) and even considered as such by her Aunt Reed and by her cousins. Adèle is abandoned by her mother and largely ignored (although treated like a “doll,” spoiled) by her father Rochester who claimed that she was simply his “ward” from France. Jane was taken in because her aunt was fulfilling her duty to the promise she made to her husband to take care of Jane. Rochester takes in Adèle in order to fulfill his duty as a father, despite his denial that she is his “bastard” daughter. Both girls are decreased to a rather inferior status by society: Adèle because she was born from an unwed match and Jane because she is the daughter of deceased parents and the descendent of a poor family.
An ambiguous, yet important role for Adèle in the story is to serve simultaneously as a double for Jane and as a contrast to Bertha. Gilbert says that “Bertha is Jane’s truest and darkest double” (487), and while this may be true, Adèle could easily be labeled as Jane’s truest and brightest double. Just as Bertha “is the angry aspect of the orphan child, the ferocious secret self Jane has been trying to repress ever since her days at Gateshead” (Gilbert 487-488), Adèle is the playful and free-spirited aspect of her governess-the happy, innocent child that Jane never had much of a chance to be. While Jane’s “darkest double” is never actually present or truthfully revealed (until Jane finally discovers Bertha’s existence), Jane’s ‘brightest double’ is almost always around. The significance of this point is that it can be viewed as an internal conflict of good versus evil where Jane’s repressed self is overwhelmingly conquered by her brighter, happier self that is seeking ultimate happiness and acceptance among other people.
A second way in which Adèle simultaneously serves as a double for Jane and a contrast to Bertha is revealed through the fact that Jane has two conflicting forms of emotions towards Rochester. Both of these emotions take precedence at different times in the novel. One of these emotions includes anger, resentment, or indifference as a result of Rochester’s arrogance, masterful tendencies, and traditional views of society and women. These feelings are expressed only slightly (mostly verbally) by Jane herself, but they are expressed to the extreme by Jane’s “darkest double” Bertha. Some examples of Bertha’s behavior that express these feelings are when she attempts more than once to kill Rochester and when she tears Jane’s wedding veil.
Jane’s other emotion toward Rochester involves happiness, admiration, and a sense of belonging, which is expressed largely by Adèle towards Rochester as her caretaker and is increasingly expressed by Jane whose ‘brighter side’ is bursting forth by the end of the novel. These positive feelings are exemplified well when in chapter 18, Adèle exclaims in French, “Mr. Rochester’s back!” after she had been awaiting his return alongside the guests at Thornfield (Brontë 161).
A final point on how Adèle is a double for Jane is the way both of their characters are drawn. G.H. Lewes mistakenly neglects to mention Adèle while he speaks of several minor characters:
The characters are few, and drawn with unusual mastery: even those that are but sketched-such as Mr. Brocklehurst, Miss Temple, Mrs. Fairfax, Rosamond, and Blanche-with a vividness which betrays the cunning hand: a few strokes, and the figure rises before you (44)
While Adèle is also a minor character, she does not deserve so little credit within the story. Her character is drawn with equal “mastery” as other characters and she becomes quite charming in her endearment to Jane and Rochester. When G.H. Lewes says of Jane, “We never lose sight of her plainness…no extraordinary goodness or cleverness appeals to your admiration…you love her for the strong will, honest mind, loving heart, and peculiar but fascinating person” (44), he might have tried looking closer to see that similar characteristics can be found in Adèle, as if she were Jane’s double. For example, the following statement about Adèle spoken by Jane to the reader reveals their similar characteristics even though Adèle expresses them in different ways:
She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity [like Jane’s ‘plainness’], gay prattle [like Jane’s ‘honest mind’], and efforts to please [like Jane’s ‘strong will’ and ‘loving heart’], inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other’s society [which supports the point discussed next about Adèle’s role in the novel]” ( Brontë 92)
Finally, Adèle and Jane have an equally-giving relationship as they each serve the other’s needs. Jane becomes a “silent listener” for several characters in the novel, two of which are Adèle and Georgiana Reed (Sternlieb 505). In return for frequently being a “silent listener” to Adèle’s constant chatter, as well as for being a silent listener to others, Jane receives individuals’ confidence by listening and being silent about her past. In the following example from chapter 12, Jane shows her love for Adèle:
This, par parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adèle’s welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self… (92)
Adèle seems to look to Jane as a sort of mother-figure even before Jane’s marriage to Rochester. In this way, Jane is transformed from a child needing a mother-like figure-filled by Helen Burns and Miss Temple-into a mother-figure for Adèle. Jane does not desire to leave Adèle to go be a governess for a more spoiled and less loving child. Consequently, Adèle helps fulfill Jane’s long quest to find a sense of value and be loved. She obviously plays a huge role in Jane feeling like she belongs at Thornfield because such a sense of belonging would have frequently disappeared every time Rochester was absent if he was the only person that made her feel like she belonged there. Jane has sympathy and compassion for Adèle when others do not: “And take Adèle with you sir, she will be a companion for you” (Brontë 257). Rochester portrays his lack of sympathy or compassion when he replies, “…and what do I want with a child for a companion? and not my own child,-a French dancer’s bastard” (Brontë 257). Blanche Ingram also reveals her lack of compassion for the child as she inquires of Rochester “Then what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that? Where did you pick her up?” (Brontë 150). Jane did not by any means forget to mention Adèle in the end of the novel. When she went to visit Adèle in her school and learned that Adèle was unhappy and living in a school with strict rules, Jane did not abandon Adèle there like she had been abandoned at Lowood Institution (Brontë 383). And in the last chapter of the novel, Jane says of Adèle “By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had in my power to offer her” (Brontë 383).
Adèle has an unmistakably keen significance in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre despite how the critics have neglected to critique her character and role in the novel. Many of the critics of Jane Eyre seemed to most enjoy critiquing the role of nature, the role of women as it relates to Victorian society, and the different characters and events in the novel that influence Jane’s nature. Not only does Adèle have several important roles in the novel that could stand by themselves as a whole critical topic, but these roles are of value to scrutinizing completely each of the three previously mentioned popular critical topics of Jane Eyre. Even three of the critics mentioned in this essay completely ignored Adèle in their criticisms, while there are obvious places (as show in this essay) that these critics could have observed and recognized Adèle’s significance and influence in relation to their own critical topics. As described in this essay, Adèle serves as both a contrast and comparison to Jane in relation to their past, childhoods and school-life, and personalities. Adèle also serves as both a double to Jane and a contrast to Bertha while also maintaining a give-and-take relationship with Jane.
Although Adèle is not the character on which the novel focuses, her influence on Jane’s character development and as a literary device of comparing and contrasting remain highly significant to the novel as a whole. Even if critics do not recognize Adèle’s importance within the novel and neglect to even notice her, Jane does not disregard Adèle’s presence and influence in her own life as is apparent by Jane’s statement mentioned in the previous paragraph: “By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had in my power to offer her” (Brontë 383).
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard J. Dunn. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Gilbert, Sandra M. “A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress.” Brontë 483-491.
Lewes, G.H. Recent Novels: French and English.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism 3 (1983): 43-44.
Sternlieb, Lisa. “Jane Eyre: ‘Hazarding Confidences’.” Brontë 503-515.
Ward, Mary. “The Brontës: The Critical Heritage.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism 8 (1983): 54-55.
