Mr Rochester — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Mr Rochester
Characters
What you need to know
How Brontë presents Mr Rochester, and how the character develops across the text: the brooding master of Thornfield whose secret marriage nearly destroys Jane, humbled and redeemed at Ferndean.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'Do you think me handsome?', 'you would do me good in some way, at some time', 'my cherished preserver', 'as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs', 'my equal is here, and my likeness', 'God pardon me! ... and man meddle not with me', 'I could bend her with my finger and thumb', 'you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog', 'The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished', 'I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard', 'Divine justice pursued its course'.
Context: Rochester as a Byronic hero, and echoes of the Bluebeard tale in a master who hides a wife in his house.
How his injuries at Ferndean humble him, and whether he is punished, redeemed or both.
Edexcel's novel question has two parts, and neither marks context: part (a) on the printed extract marks language, form and structure (AO2); part (b) on the novel elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1), not language analysis. Use context only where it explains a reading, and say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
