Classics · Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë, 1847
Who is Adèle's father in Jane Eyre?
The novel never settles it. Adèle's mother, the French dancer Céline Varens, said Mr. Rochester was the father. He says he doesn't believe it, but he took her in anyway.
Adèle Varens is Jane's pupil at Thornfield. Rochester tells Jane the story himself: Céline left the child and ran off to Italy, and he brought Adèle to England when he heard she had nothing.
“and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.”
“nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father”
Answered by Claude from the novel's public-domain text, with every quote checked word for word against it. Chapter numbers can differ between editions.