Mad Women and Imaginative Professors.

I just finished reading the Introduction to Jane Eyre. (One is advised by the publisher to read the book before reading the Introduction, since the latter gives the game away here and there. In that case, it seems to me that ‘Introduction’ is an odd thing to call it. But anyway…)

According to the learned professor who wrote said Introduction, Mad Mrs Rochester’s act of tearing Jane’s wedding veil asunder on the night before the prospective nuptials represents a symbolic taking of Jane’s virginity in order to prevent Edward claiming his prize. Ooh…

But hang on a minute. Mad Mrs R is mad, right, so would she really be thinking in symbolic terms? Even if she’d known of and comprehended Edward’s planned act of bigamy – which isn’t all that likely since she’s locked in the attic all day with only the dipsomaniac Grace Poole for company, and is mad – wouldn’t she have been more likely to do Jane some physical mischief, especially since we already know she has difficult moods during which she likes burning, stabbing and biting people? Isn’t it more likely that, being mad, she just fancied trashing something?