In the movie adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre , directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (2011), the protagonist Jane experiences abuse in her childhood, both by her aunt and cousins, as well as in the charity school she attends. As an adult, she sets out to be independent and make her own money. She becomes employed as a governess in a house whose owner she does not yet know. Jane is sent to deliver letters to post but on the way has an unexpected meeting in the spooky woods with a man on horseback. The man turns out to be Rochester, her employer, with whom Jane later has a love affair with. Rochester and Jane’s first meeting in the woods begins with Rochester and his horse suddenly crashing to the ground in front of Jane (Fukunaga, 2011, 0:33:10). Alex Woloch touches on the importance of how said minor characters enter and exit scenes, as well as what point in which they appear in the text (Woloch 14). In the case of Rochester’s horse, it appears at a key point in the film, as Rochester and Jane first meet. The reactions of the two lovers-to-be when meeting each other are accentuated by the horse’s presence. Rochester falls off the horse when he first sees Jane, symbolizing his stunned reaction to her. On the other hand, Jane gets spooked by the horse, which can be explained by her rare interaction with men and how she is also caught off guard by the interaction with Rochester. The two lovers’ meeting takes each of them by surprise, foreshadowing the unexpected relationship that forms later in the film. Rochester being on his horse when he first meets Jane also creates a status dynamic in which he sits higher up than her, as it is revealed shortly after that Rochester is Jane’s employer. Therefore, Rochester’s horse contributes to both the representation of social order, as well as projects the emotions of Jane and Rochester as they meet for the first time.
Works Cited
Fukunaga, C. (Director). (2011). Jane Eyre [Film]. Ruby Films; Focus Features; BBC Films.
Woloch, Alex. “Making More of Minor Characters.” The One vs. the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 125–76. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7srp4.6. Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.
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