Classics · Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë, 1847
Who is Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre?
Bertha Mason is Mr. Rochester's wife, kept locked on the top floor of Thornfield Hall. She is the reason his wedding to Jane is stopped.
Rochester married her in Jamaica when he was young, and says he only learned afterwards about the madness in her family. Jane has been hearing a strange laugh in the house for months without knowing it is hers.
Later Bertha sets Thornfield on fire and dies falling from the roof, and that leaves Rochester free to marry Jane.
“That is my wife,”
“the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement”
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.