Daily Dialogue — April 16, 2012
Jane finally stops, her great distress escaping her.
JANE: How? I have lived a full life here. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been excluded from every glimpse of what is bright. I have talked, face to face, with an original, expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with anguish to be torn from you.
ROCHESTER: Then why must you leave?
JANE: Because of your wife!
ROCHESTER: I have no wife.
JANE: But you are to be married.
ROCHESTER: Yes — Jane, you must stay.
JANE: And become nothing to you? Am I a machine without feelings? Do you think that because I am poor, obscure, plain and little that I am soulless and heartless? I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had blessed me with beauty and wealth I could make it as hard for you to leave me as it is for I to leave you.
This comes as a revelation to Rochester.
JANE: I’m not speaking to you through mortal flesh. It’s my spirit that addresses your spirit as if we’d passed through the grave and stood at God’s feet, equal — as we are.
Rochester takes Jane in his arms.
ROCHESTER: As we are.
She struggles.
JANE (Freeing herself): I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.
Rochester releases her.
ROCHESTER: Then let your will decide your destiny. I offer you my hand, my heart and a share of all this.
He gestures towards the house, the land. Jane is stunned.
ROCHESTER: I ask you to pass through life at my side. Jane, you are my equal and my likeness. Will you marry me?
JANE: Are you mocking me?
ROCHESTER: Do you doubt me?
JANE: Entirely. (BEAT) Your bride is Miss Ingram –
ROCHESTER: Miss Ingram? She is the machine without feelings. It’s you — you rare, unearthly thing. Poor and obscure as you are — please accept me as your husband.
Jane begins to believe him, she studies his face.
ROCHESTER: I must have you for my own.
JANE: You wish me to be your wife?
ROCHESTER: I swear it.
JANE: You love me?
ROCHESTER: I do.
JANE: Then sir, I will marry you.
— Rochester (Michael Fassbender), Jane (Mia Wasikowska), Jane Eyre (2011), screenplay by Moira Buffini, based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë
http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=ndc6
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is marriage proposals, suggested by Teddy Pasternak, who also suggested Jane Eyre.
Trivia: Jane’s uncle John leaves her an inheritance of 20,000 British pounds. In modern money terms that would be equivalent to approximately 45.5 million dollars.
Dialogue On Dialogue: One thing that is so great about this marriage proposal is it also serves as the capstone on what we’ve felt about Jane all along. If only someone could see her for who she truly is. And Rochester does with this line: “It’s you — you rare, unearthly thing. Poor and obscure as you are — please accept me as your husband.”