Rochester vs Macon Dead

Working as a sort of bridge between our readings of Wide Sargasso Sea and Song of Solomon, I wanted to think about the class discussion we had this week about Rochester and Macon Dead II as sympathetic and/or similar characters.

Rochester and Macon have the same basic goals in their respective novels: to acquire a lot of wealth, Rochester through his marriage to a rich plantation owner's daughter, Macon through his own work ethic and his marriage to a wealthy doctor's daughter. The main idea for both of the men is to get more money, and their marriages are secondary obligations (that are for solely for pleasure, but only at first). Macon's striving for wealth has more to do with moving up the social ladder, however, (while Rochester's search for money & land is done to keep up his already high social status) and is closely tied with his identity as an African-American who wants to achieve social parity between himself and White Americans. In this way, Macon's desire to own a large house, run a successful business, and drive a nice car is actually the complete opposite of Rochester's, because Macon's story is that of the disadvantaged and traditionally oppressed striving for equality with the oppressors, while Rochester's story is that of the privileged trying to maintain that which makes them privileged (land, wealth, power) and holds them above the oppressed. For this reason, I feel more sympathetic to Macon than to Rochester, but when I think of the two character's personalities and behaviors, my feelings start to change.

Rochester: drives his wife insane then locks her in an attic and pretends she doesn't exist
Macon: has zero tolerance for his wife, is cold towards his family, does whatever needs to be done in order to get his money (ex. kicks an entire family out of their home)

Now let's look at the motivation/back-story to what's listed above.

Yes, Rochester was thrown into his marriage and through his narration makes it seem as if he was purposefully saddled with a lunatic-to-be, but his main motivation for marriage was the money, right? So he wouldn't have cared either way, except for the fact that he kind of grows to love her -- kind of. He just lusts after her in the beginning, but there are definitely some moments -- at least a few -- where they seem to connect on a more than physical level. Like the night after he visits Daniel Cosway and Antoinette visits Christophene and they just talk it out in the impartial darkness of the night. He even says "I swear she didn't have to do what she did" (aka use the love potion that he takes to be poison). Weren't they just so close to making it through at that point? But it all just went downhill from there, and it seems like there's still a part of him that retains some of that affection for her and that part of him morphs into an irrational "my mad girl" type of feeling. I feel like Rochester is a sympathetic character, because his motivations are complex and not entirely one-dimensional; I want to hate him for being so cruel in his dehumanization of Antoinette, but I can also see that wasn't necessarily planning to do this to her, in one tragic way or another it just kind of happened. He's is by no means justified in his actions, but I can feel a sort of sympathy for him because he's driven himself mad, in a way.

As for Macon Dead II, he seems cold, harsh, pretentious. His is so emotionally distanced from every single person in his life that it's easy to dislike him, but it's also incredibly sad, if you think about it, that he has no person that he loves or is emotionally attached to, and he also has nobody else who loves him. Pilate is the one person who he deeply cared for, then something happened, and Macon Dead II seemed to have changed after that. It seems like he doesn't trust love anymore, now he believes in respect. And respect, for him, comes through wealth, power, and an elevated lifestyle & attitude.

Rochester at least had some tangible emotion, and because he was narrating we got to understand more of what he was feeling. Macon is a lot harder to understand which makes him harder, thought not impossible, to sympathize with. As the novel goes on, I'd really like to see how his character comes to light.