“I was afraid of
some one coming out of the inner room.”
“But I had
fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I
should have been
a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my
pet lamb—so near a
wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.”
Mr Rochester seems to love this analogy of
the lamb and the shepherd. The first time that he refers to Jane as his “lamb”
and to himself as a "careless shepherd" is when he leaves the "lamb" (his “pet
lamb”) outside the “wolf’s den”. This idea of Jane being the little lamb, Mr Rochester
as the shepherd (albeit a self-proclaimed one) and Bertha Mason as the big bad
wolf seems a simplistic at first but if looked at closely it’s interesting.
When Mr Rochester unleashes the bolt to Bertha’s room he literally stands
between the lamb and the glaring wolf, tries to tame the wolf, compares, “the
red eyes yonder” to the ‘innocent” ones of the lamb. The shepherd seemingly
stands between the wolf and the lamb. But who exposed Jane (assuming that she
is the lamb) to the threat of Bertha Mason, her first encounter, with the
latter is when she tears the veil in to two pieces, before the wedding. Thus it
is the shepherd who exposes the lamb to the wolf in the first place. Ironically
enough, the first encounter between the lamb and the shepherd is when “the
little ewe lamb” rescues the shepherd. Later the lamb continues to rescue
Rochester in a spring of situations, the fire scene, and the nursing-Mason
scene and in the end when Rochester has lost his sight. Also the roles of the lamb
and the shepherd are literally inverted whereas typically the shepherd is
supposed to guide the lamb into green pastures; in Rochester’s case the “stray
lamb” is to guide him away from a moral decline. This is done in two ways.
Firstly due to love of the lamb the shepherd is rescued from immoral influences
such as “Celine, Giacinta, and Clara” (the continental cats if we may). Added to
this the shepherd is led by the lamb away from a life of sin. The lamb is a
very brave one since when Rochester asks of Jane, “ Jane, you understand what I
want of you? Just this promise—’
I will be yours,
Mr. Rochester.’”
“Mr. Rochester,
I will not be yours.” she says clearly and concisely. Thus when Mr
Rochester asks Jane that “You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd,?”; he is mistaken. The
shepherd in this relationship is really Jane (which leaves only the option of
the lamb open for Rochester). But what
thought processes would make Rochester feel like the shepherd in his equation
with Jane and refer to her as the lamb. May be a self-image, a male gaze which
makes Jane ideal for him because to him Jane is "little Janet"- "the lamb". Whatever propagated this analogy for
Rochester, by the end of the novel you realize that it is a twisted one. Either
Jane is the shepherd or the lamb rescues the shepherd from the big bad wolf of
immorality.
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