The relationship between Jane Eyre and RochesterEach of us carries within us the seed of a unique plant. When circumstances conspire to carefully nourish this seed in the way most appropriate to its true nature – circumstances which, unfortunately, are as rare as they are fortunate – the germ of our original self is likely to flourish. However, when this tender seed receives insufficient attention or attention contrary to its essential inclination, its growth is inevitably spoiled in one way or another. Weaker or more sensitive seedlings may die back completely; others will be irremediably delayed. Stronger plants may still reach towering heights, but they will be bent and twisted where their needs were not met, and may well feel eternally obliged to somehow loosen the knot of these deprivations distorting, in order to get closer to their initial objective. forms: Jane Eyre and Rochester are two of these plants; Driven by an indomitable drive to find and follow their essential selves, they discover in each other a vital key to achieving that goal. As any conscientious parent knows, a child needs both roots - love and security - and wings - belief and encouragement in his or her autonomy - in order to mature. Although gifted at the latter – the drive for self-actualization mentioned earlier – Jane and Rochester were severely deprived of the foundation of the former. They are both foreigners. The identities they have managed to form for themselves therefore have a rare quality of integrity, because they have mainly come from within, and not from the external incentive to please and imitate others. At the same time, these characters lack the sense of security and connection that is the essential support of such gifts. When the two... middle of paper ......r love: like two trees in a dense, dark forest, bending, twisting and intertwining to reach an opening of warm, bright sunshine, more beautiful to my mind than their spotless brothers.Works cited and consultedBronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin, 1985. Gordon, Lyndall. Charlotte Brontë: a passionate life. New York: Norton, 1994.Michie, Helena. The Flesh Made Word: female figures and female bodies. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Poovey, Mary. “Speaking of the Body: Mid-Victorian Constructions of Female Desire.” Jacobus, Keller and Shuttleworth 24-46. Rich, Adrienne. “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman.” Gates 142-55.Roy, Parama. “Unhoused Woman and Poetics of Property in Jane Eyre.” Studies in English Literature 29 (1989): 713-27.Sullivan, Sheila. Study the Brontës. Longman: York, 1986.