Bertha Mason
Despite never being alone with her (although this was not unusual, as at the time it was considered inappropriate for a young, unmarried woman to be left unchaperoned with a man), and supposedly having had scarcely any interaction or conversation with her, he married her for her wealth and beauty, and with fierce encouragement from his own father and the Mason family.
Rochester's father knew of this but did not bother to tell his son, caring only about the vast fortune the marriage would bring him, and the Mason family clearly wanted Bertha off their hands as quickly as possible.
[5] Rochester returns with her to England and has her imprisoned in a third-floor room off the gallery of his house for ten years with Grace Poole, a hired nurse who keeps her under control.
However, Grace drinks sometimes, and Bertha manages to escape, causing havoc in the house: starting a fire in Mr Rochester's bed and biting and stabbing her visiting brother.
[8] A number of Victorian writers at the time suggested that madness could result from a racially "impure" lineage, compounded by growing up in a tropical West Indian climate.
The book purports to tell Antoinette's side of the story, as well as Rochester's, and to account for how she ended up alone and raving in the attic of Thornfield Hall.
According to the book, Antoinette's insanity and drunkenness are the result of Rochester's misguided belief that madness is in her blood and that she was part of the scheme to have him married blindly.
After her widowed, mentally frail, Martinique mother remarries the wealthy Englishman, Mr. Mason, vengeful former slaves burn down the family estate, angry that their oppressors' fortunes are restored.
The characters of Jane Eyre and Antoinette are portrayed as being very similar; independent, vivacious, imaginative young women with troubled childhoods, educated in religious establishments and looked down on by the upper classes—and, of course, they both marry Mr Rochester.
She displays a deep vein of morbidity verging on a death-wish and, in contrast with Jane's overt Christianity,[11] holds a cynical viewpoint of both God and religion in general.
