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Similarities and differences between Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene and chapter 23 from Jane Eyre. Analyse
by Elena Gil (2008-09, 5ºB)
The crucial similarity between both stories lies in the fact that earthly circumstances prevent them from being together - Romeo and Juliet because their families were enemies and Jane and her master because, in her words, 'wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably love'.
Moreover, Jane and Juliet's conduct is close in that both appear to be unusually honest and true. In fact, Juliet fears that Romeo understand not her behaviour, and mistake it for lightness. Also, both women reveal first their attachment to the man they love. Jane does it the moment she comes back to him from Gateshead -'Wherever you are is my home – my only home' - and Juliet, when surprised by Romeo speaking to herself while he was hiding in the orchard (the place is another coincidence).
On the other hand, the harder conditions borne by Jane and Mr Rochester make their scene more intense. But bitterness is also present, having its roots in Mr Rochester's cruel behaviour, when she addresses him these words, 'And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.'
Also, Jane's plainness gives more complexity to the story, leading to a particularly moving love confession from her man: 'Jane, you strange, you almost unearthly thing! – I love as my own flesh. You – poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are – I entreat to accept me as a husband.' In comparison, Romeo's flattering words to Juliet strike us as common: 'dear saint', 'bright angel'.
The difference in character between these two women is clearly drawn by Juliet's reference to the wanton's bird. Jane's obstinacy is well summarized in her sentence "I am no bird […] I am a free human being with an independent will which I now exert to leave you".
But Jane is skeptical about his love ('let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight'), as Juliet was. In that sense, Juliet would rather not have an oath from Romeo that night ('Don't swear tonight. Too rash, too unadvised… too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say "it lightens''). Curiously enough, Charlotte closes the chapter in a disturbing manner, with a lightning that splits the orchard's chestnut tree in two halves.