Rochester vs. Antoinette

I've heard several people talk in and outside of class on their opinions of whether or not Rochester and/or Antoinette deserve sympathy. For one, I think it's very important to look at their past to explain their actions in the present. For both of them, they clearly had family issues, with Rochester feeling undervalued/disowned because of his father giving everything to his first son according to their family tradition. For Antoinette, we can clearly see that her mother doesn't seem to care about her, not even knowing or caring where she is or who she's with. In addition, Antoinette unlike Rochester doesn't actually have her real father, instead she gets Mr. Mason, who only seems to cause more problems upon his arrival. I think that this similarity in their past is crucial to even start comparing how bad their actions are later in their life.

When it comes to deciding who is worthy of my sympathy, the past can be used to explain the reasoning for why it was done, but it cannot be used to justify the actions that take place. Rochester knowingly tortures a mentally challenged person which I can only assume is for his satisfaction and pride, while Antoinette basically rapes Rochester. Both of these are completely inexcusable, regardless of what happened to a person to make them resort to said outcomes. While I don't think either deserve sympathy, I think that Antoinette's case clearly seems like the more obvious to receive more warmth from the majority. Antoinette clearly seems to be the more mentally instable of the two, seems to have had the harsher past, mainly because she was put into this situation from early on without having any information or knowledge about it and also being almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, constantly being bullied and harassed. The big issue I have with Rochester is his incentive for mentally torturing Antoinette, there really doesn't seem to be any moral reason that he does it, other than for personal revenge. In this sense he seems like a man child, unable to handle a situation maturely and feeling the need to get back at Antoinette for raping him and hurting his pride as a cause of that rather than being the better man and walking away/letting the police handle it. In conclusion, Rochester deserves hate while Antoinette doesn't deserve approval or praise.

Comments

  1. GrantNovember 17, 2018 at 12:59 PM

    It's clear that they both had their issues but like you said these issues don't excuse them both escalating the abuse. Antoinette seems more sympathetic to me because even though the love potion is pretty despicable it seemed like to came from some twisted form of love instead of Rochester which comes from pride and hate

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1000gamesNovember 17, 2018 at 3:18 PM

    Kids, this is why arranged marriage is bad. I agree that Rochester deserves hate. He is the "King" in this relationship and he makes most of the decisions for Antoinette. Since Rochester is an unjust king, Antoinette, a responsible citizen, simply rebelled against the unjust king. I don't condone or endorse date rape drug.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nic RamkumarNovember 17, 2018 at 3:48 PM

    This kind of reminds me on the question we kept coming back to with The Stranger, "does it make sense to judge people?". I think this book presents the side saying yes we can. While a lot of what both characters do can be seen as understandable given the context of what they had been through in life, there are pretty clear points where both characters step over the line into what most would consider inexcusable. For Antionette it's when she drugs Rochester and for Rochester it's when he basically abducts Antionette.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AlexNovember 17, 2018 at 8:26 PM

    I think they are both in many ways made out to be sympathetic characters. Rhys seems eager to in her quest to complicate a one dimensional character, to not inadvertently portray the other as one dimensional. I think that both characters to horrible things to each other and question the justice of morally weighing their motivations. Is a horrible act done for love any less horrible than one done for pride or hate?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Eli GarrettNovember 17, 2018 at 9:45 PM

    I think a very important distinction is that Antoinette was discriminated against throughout her childhood, her mother died, her brother died, and her house was burned down. Rochester was a bit of a disappointment to his parents but he had privilege on his side, and had a much easier childhood. So I think Antoinette is a child of circumstance and Rochester is just f***ed in the head.

    ReplyDelete
  6. KevinNovember 25, 2018 at 3:24 PM

    It's hard to say that Rochester deserves more hate because he mentally tortured Antoinette. If you are referring to him locking her in the attic, one could argue that he isn't physically harming her by doing this, but Antoinette did physically abuse him by drugging and raping him. I don't think you can evaluate who's actions are more justified because of their pasts, because having a rough past isn't really a valid excuse--legally at least.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Importance of Names

As we noticed early on, the characters in Song of Solomon all had very peculiar names. Whether it be very unusual like First Corinthian or whether it be more of a nickname like Milkman, Morrison has hidden a much broader and deeper meaning behind many of the names she assigns the characters. Perhaps the most important idea Morrison attempted to convey was the idea that the more familiar/popular name is often more descriptive than the more original or recorded name given to places or people. We can see several examples of this throughout the book, starting with Milkman himself. While Milkman's official name is Macon Dead III, that doesn't show much other than his biological relationship to his ancestry. However, his nickname Milkman provides us more than that, giving information on the nature of Milkman's unusual relationship with his mother, being breast fed way past the age one usually stops, which everyone in the town seems to pick up pretty quickly from this nickna...
Read more

I thought I was a cat person

I’ve had a couple of pets during my life, but most of them are dead now as they were fish or birds who were eaten or killed by my cat. Currently, I only own a dog and as mentioned before, a cat. Obviously the whole family cares for both pets, but we each have our preferences; I prefer my cat because I was the one who wanted to get one in the first place. I like dogs too, but only the large kind, so I thought a cat would be a more appropriate house pet, as I had to find one way to convince my mom of allowing it. My dog is some sort of mix of Labrador and Pitbull so he’s fairly large and muscular. When you add in a mix of high energy and stupidity, he can become pretty dangerous and you can begin to see why he wouldn’t be fit to be an indoor dog. Unlike my cat though, he doesn’t mean to be an annoyance or cause harm. As I and my cat have gotten older, he’s started to become more and more of an annoyance and I’ve started to get more and more annoyed. The thing he always does ...
Read more

Septimus's Sexuality

We dedicated a lot of time in class on the topic of Septimus's relationship with Evans and whether or not it's homosexual. I don't completely discard the possibility of Septimus being homosexual as we have already seen an example in Clarissa and Sally, in addition to the similarities Woolf draws between Clarissa and Septimus's suicide near the end of the book. However, I don't think that the stressful situations in the trenches during the war should be used as a primary piece of evidence for this argument of Septimus being gay, perhaps a little side note if used at all. For me, I just can't see it any other way. During rough times like a war, emotions are most likely running rampant, people don't know what to do, people start to panic. It seems clear as day to me that Septimus was in this position and was looking for someone to guide him. It's only natural, we all do it as well. When we have no clue what's going on or don't know what to do, ...
Read more