Antoinette: The Ultimate Victim

In class, we reflected on which character we sympathize with the most. I started the novel aligned with Antoinette, and I kind of turned neutral in the middle, but then ended completely aligned with Antoinette again.

I was on team Antoinette at the beginning of the novel because I started it with her. However, after she married Rochester, the story became more and more complex and it became difficult to pick a “side,” as both characters became psychologically damaged by their relationship. Like Amelie, I felt “sad” for both Rochester and Antoinette. But by the end of the story, I could not help but sympathize with Antoinette, who was stripped of her sense of identity, the power that she had, and her humanity.

First, let me express the reasoning behind the sympathy I had for Rochester, before I rip him apart. As the second son, Rochester doesn’t think he will inherit his family money, so he thinks his only option is to use marriage as a means to get money. That is pretty sad, and in a way, he kind of sells himself to Antoinette. He enters a new world after he gets married, and he’s an outsider there. He also feels as though something is being concealed from him, about Antoinette, and that irks him. Then, Antoinette drugs him.

Antoinette’s choice to drug Rochester is agreeably controlling and morally wrong. It seems that she does this out of desperation for love, after she tastes the possibility of happiness with him, and then feels as though she will lose it. Rochester’s response, sleeping with Amelie, and knowingly basically in front of Antoinette, is clearly out of hatred and a desperation not for love, but for revenge. His response is especially painful for Antoinette given her history; she has not experienced very much love in her life, and to be treated coldly reminds her of how she was treated by her mother. She lets her guard down, allows herself to experience the possibility of love, becomes obsessed. Then he resents her for her obsession, grows to hate her for it, and then tries to hurt her. Both characters exercise emotional manipulation and experience personal decline, and it is sad.

But then it takes a turn. Rochester gains power and Antoinette loses it. We see Rochester start to cling to every chance he has to maintain his power over Antoinette. He doesn’t love her, he detests her, but is still filled with rage when Christophine mentions that she might marry someone else. He thinks she is “mad,” but tells himself that she is “mine.” He starts to develop exactly what he grew to hate Antoinette for: her desire to control him. He removes Antoinette from her home, cutting the last strand of identity she has, and then tries to manipulate and change her into a “marionette” or Bertha Mason who is powerless and submissive.

Both characters have gone mad by the end of the novel. Rochester’s obsessive punishment is totally out of the realm of normal human behavior. But Antoinette’s madness is different: she doesn’t know where she is anymore, she has lost her sense of time, she loses memory, and her only ties to who she was are the ones she holds onto through hallucinations. She is the victim.

Comments

  1. Antoinette is definitely the victim in the situation. It is kind of sad seeing how they started their marriage fine and somewhat happy, but then things just started to get worse. I think the reason Antoinette goes "mad" at the end is because of the treatment she's been receiving all her life. Antoinette never really felt what love is throughout her childhood, though she kind of senses it at the beginning of her marriage with Rochester. But then all of that gets taken away when he turns on her, so I think that is what pushed her over the edge.

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  2. I completely agree. I think that the power between Antoinette and Rochester was very imbalanced form the beginning of their marriage. First of all, Rochester gains money from it, while Antoinette only loses. There's that scene where Christophine asks him to give her and Antoinette some money so they can leave, and Rochester refuses because it's his money, even though it all came from Antoinette's inheritance. Additionally, Rochester has less to lose from a failed marriage. His main concern is his pride, not wanting to go back to England as a rejected suitor, and eventually (after he snaps) not wanting Antoinette to be with anyone else because she's "his". However, when the marriage doesn't work out, Antoinette loses her money, her freedom, her sanity, whatever identity she had (she's now Bertha), and her home (the island). Therefore, from the beginning, Rochester had the upper hand, making everything that happens later in his advantage.

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  3. I had a similar thought process to yours regarding Antoinette but didn't really ever feel sympathetic or understanding towards Rochester. I agree with you that in part one, it's easy to lean towards Antoinette because the story started with her and is given from her perspective. In part two, while I did think that Antoinette turned a bit "crazy" by drugging Rochester, I didn't feel any pity towards him and felt that he got what he deserved. Yes, Antoinette's actions are unforgivable and unjustifiable because of how drastic they are, but I thought that Rochester deserved it because of how he emotionally used her and made her think that he loved her. My dislike for Rochester only intensified in part three after reading about how he locked her up in the attic and isolated her from society.

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  4. Both Rochester and Antoinette have had their issues, but Antoinette has lost so much more. She's been stripped of everything she had, even her name. What's worse is that not only was she driven mad by all of the things that have happened to her but everyone thinks that she just inherited it from her mother. Both her mother and her were suffering and no one really believed them and thought it was just something that happened, not that someone/something could have caused it. I also get how you feel sorry for Rochester but for me, he loses that pity because of how obsessively possessive and horrible he is to Antoinette. I really agree with you, Antoinette is the victim.

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  5. You really broke down the little steps that led to Antoinette and Rochester's catastrophic ending, so thank you! Rochester resenting Antoinette for her obsession, yet becoming obsessed with her later in a sicker way, is a good parallel to make. It provides a nice emphasis on how absolutely tragic the whole situation is. I completely understand how Antoinette is the total victim here, albeit the fact that both of them suffer tremendously.

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  6. This is a good post, i can see both sides very clearly. I Sympathize for both the characters but one thing I feel that is overlooked a lot is Rochester getting drugged. The action of drugging someone and then taking advantage of one is seen as assault. While the book doesn't explicitly say that, that's what happend after Rochester drank the drink given to him by Antoinette, it can be inferred (I think). The actions took after this (locking her up, hiding her, and more) are not ethical and a reason I lose some sympathy for Rochester, I can see veryyyyy foggily as to why he did it. (I could be making this up) I feel as if Rochester did that because after what was done to him he felt as if he lost the sole power he was trying to have and gain over someone (once again not a good thing to begin with and I'm not saying i agree with it). While he could have gone to the police the odds of them believing him were low. He would probably been ridiculed (more then he already is) by the other men and been seen as "less of a man". So, instead of facing the abuse he took matters into his own hand and did what he did. (Note: this is what I thought might have been a reason for his actions and not one I agree with.)

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