In class we discussed how Rochester told his story to make himself more sympathetic… but no matter what he does I can't feel sympathetic to him (see previous post). Instead, his only way of potentially making me think for a moment that he is the protagonist of the story is by making the rest of the characters even less sympathetic, a method that might be called "assholier than thou."
To start off with, Rochester is paranoid. He thinks everyone else is in on some joke or big secret or he's the victim of a massive conspiracy. He gives us plenty of details to support this: Daniel Cosway's letter and conversation, everyone laughing weirdly, and his wife trying to poison him. Plus, there's the obeah woman on the side and he's been reading too many books about zombies.
This shouldn't make us sympathetic to him, though. Lots of antagonists are victims to torment and torture before they die. Just take a look at Disney villains. Scar could easily make it seem like that little brat Simba was conniving with two natives and a bunch of his closest advisors to overthrow him. Frollo could tell his story in such a way that Esmerelda is actually some sort of demon temptress trying to lead him to hell with the help of her gruesome sidekick and traitorous love interest. Even Maleficent is wronged: everyone else ostracized her and didn't invite her to the party!
What Rochester does to try and elicit our sympathy is to portray the Caribbean as a wild, uncivilized place full of wild, uncivilized people. But most of all, he extends this prescribed barbarianism to his wife. From Rochester's perspective, Antoinette is always acting weird. She throws rocks, kisses subhumans, speaks patois, and goes by the diminutive of her mother's name. When there is dialogue, her sentences seem choppy, almost pidgin, because pieces of the conversation are omitted or narrated. The only positive description of Antoinette we get from Rochester is that she is beautiful and he lusts after her… which seems to be the one type of involvement he's willing to have with the Caribbean and its people (Amelie).
So he's a jerk. But he's managing to prevent me from developing sympathy towards the other characters, a real feat for a narrator who I automatically distrust.
You need to copyright the phrase "assholier than thou." I hope I can be forgiven if I filch it at some point (I promise I'll give credit where credit is due). It captures so nicely how Rochester knows how to cast his personal "misfortune" in a way to elicit maximum sympathy while completely ignoring both his own role in creating that circumstance and how much worse it might be for the others involved. If we give him any leeway early on, it has to do with his youth and inexperience and bewilderment--the poor guy is so out of his element, and he does sort of try here and there. But by the ending of part 2, where the gloves come off and he promises to wield all the power his society affords him to imprison his wife, simply out of jealousy and spite, while still retaining this self-righteous pose . . . "assholier than thou" indeed.
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