The Wife Upstairs

“Behind every one of these McMansions is a bright green backyard, so it makes no sense that anyone would even need a dog-walker. But need is not a word people like this think of. Everything with them is want.”

Jane criticizes the residents of Thornfield Estates for their lavish lifestyle. She is an outsider who sees through the shallow performances of her employers. Despite her criticism, this is the world that Jane strives to gain entrance into, imagining that it will free her from having to think about basic “needs” or anything else that recalls her traumatic past.

“The sameness of Thornfield Estates means that eventually, all the houses blur together. I like that—a beautiful blur is better than the depressing monotony of my part of town—but there’s something about this house, all alone at the end of a cul-de-sac, that draws me back every time.”

Jane is drawn to Eddie and Bea Rochester’s home and stops there during her walks. This attraction to the house foreshadows Jane’s connection to Rochester and demonstrates the importance she places on what this house represents: safety and stability. The sameness of all the neighborhood houses is also suggestive, hinting at the artificial lives the residents lead as they conform to a particular image of success and affluence.

“I’m free as a fucking bird.”

After Eddie calls her “My Jane,” Jane replies in this manner. Her reply is an adaptation of a significant line from Charlotte Brontë’s original text: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me” (Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics, 2006, p. 293). Both versions highlight Jane’s independence, which is what attracts both versions of Rochester.

“How had I married a monster and never seen it until it was too late?”

Bea writes this in her journal as she is locked in the panic room. She questions how she could not have foreseen Eddie’s duplicity. The irony of this line only becomes clear at the novel’s conclusion when Hawkins reveals Bea to be the true monster. This line illustrates the secrecy and doubt that animate the interactions between characters.

“It’s a reminder that there’s a whole world here full of undercurrents and stories and connections and voids. Just when I feel like I’ve got a handle on it, some new thing pops up, some indication that I’m a newcomer here. An outsider.”

Jane reflects on being an outsider in the complex society within Thornfield Estates. Although Jane feels disadvantaged by her status as an outsider, it’s ultimately what saves her from the dangerous undercurrents that exist within the neighborhood. Her hard-learned survival instincts consistently alert her to danger, and her lack of any real attachment to the people who live in Thornfield Estates allows her to walk away from the fire unscathed.

“Being Mrs. Rochester feels like another brick in the wall between me and threats like that, like maybe John wouldn’t even attempt it if he thought it would involve Eddie.”

John Rivers’s attempts to blackmail Jane and expose her past increasingly unnerve Jane. She wants to secure her position as Eddie’s wife to protect herself from her past, comparing this protection to a wall made of bricks. This image evokes the physical structure of Eddie’s house, which Jane believes symbolizes a future of stability and safety. Ironically, a fire destroys this symbol at the novel’s conclusion.

“It was always a balancing act, separating the wants of the girl she used to be from the needs of the woman she was now.”

Bea contemplates this thought as she sits on the beach in Hawaii shortly before meeting Eddie. She questions her choice to travel to Hawaii by herself after Blanche criticizes it, reflecting on the ways in which her traumatic childhood influences her as she struggles with her newfound independence. Jane struggles to balance these competing desires as well.

“She’d built an image of the person she wanted to be, and Eddie was perhaps the first person who truly understood it. Probably because he was little more than an image himself.”

During their initial meeting, Bea sees through Eddie’s charm to the commonality between Eddie and herself. Both project images of themselves disparate from their humble backgrounds. In the future, Bea will recognize this commonality within Jane as well. This reliance on a façade unites the three characters and ties them together irrevocably.

“Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here. I was supposed to be safe here, this place was supposed to be safe. And even though Blanche and Bea had disappeared before I even arrived in Thornfield Estates, there was a part of me that felt like maybe this was my fault. Had I brought this here? This sordidness, this violence? Did it cling to me like some kind of virus, infecting anyone who got close to me?”

Jane begins to reconsider her image of Thornfield Estates as a haven from her turbulent past after learning about Blanche’s murder. Jane’s lack of self-worth leads her to blame herself for possibly contaminating Thornfield Estates before she even arrived. This revelation upends Jane’s prior focus on escaping her past and forces her to protect herself by confronting the reality of her life.

“I’d always thought it was just the money that I wanted, but looking at Emily now, I know I’ve wanted this, too. People to care about me. People to accept me.”

Jane begins to reevaluate what she is searching for after learning of Blanche’s murder. No longer able to find safety in Thornfield Estates, Jane realizes that what she longs for is human connection. Jane’s priorities begin to shift. Human connection is what ultimately puts an end to the toxicity of Eddie and Bea’s relationship and frees Jane from the past.

“It isn’t just the two of them together—it’s that it’s so public, that anyone can see them, that people will see them, and they’ll talk.”

Bea becomes enraged after discovering Blanche and Eddie having a private lunch at a local café. Bea is not just jealous of Blanche’s flirtation with Eddie; she is obsessed with what others will think of her. This demonstrates Bea’s desperate need to maintain a façade of perfection, which leads to take drastic measures central to the plot of the novel.

“When I’d hung up the phone, I’d waited for real regret, knowing I’d just snipped the one thin thread still holding me to any family. And a year ago, even a few months ago, knowing my mom had had a sister who was looking for me would’ve made me feel almost pathetically grateful. Aunt Georgie. Now, it was just another loose end to tie up. I’d made my choice, made my family, and I was closing the door on all of it.”

John Rivers has been blackmailing Jane by threatening to expose her past. Rather than paying John and continuing to run from her past, Jane ultimately takes action and calls the number from Phoenix. This moment marks a development in Jane as she takes steps to lay her fear to rest and move forward. Significantly, her language anticipates the lack of remorse Bea will later express regarding her mother’s murder. However, the parallel also highlights the differences between the two women; while Jane can be ruthless in fighting for herself, she does not share Bea’s total callousness toward other people.

“He let Jane die. The real Jane, the one I loved, the one who was the best friend I ever had, my sister, even if we didn’t share any blood. We’d shared a home, though. We’d shared a nightmare.”

Jane recalls the neglect of Mr. Brock, her foster father, and the subsequent death of her foster sister. The “real Jane” was not just this Jane’s friend but, symbolically, her humanity. After exacting her revenge on Mr. Brock, Jane loses sense of the human connection she experienced as a girl.

“I couldn’t stop picturing it, my skeleton on this comfy bed with its white sheets, some new family moving in one day, finding me there. Maybe I’d become a ghost. Maybe I’d haunt this house forever, wailing away upstairs.”

Bea imagines dying in the panic room when Eddie does not return to replenish her supplies. She refers to herself as a ghost, alluding to the Gothic elements present in Brontë’s original text. Bea’s reference to herself as a ghost also exemplifies the ways her presence and memory haunt Jane as she attempts to adopt Bea’s role in Eddie’s life and in Thornfield Estates.

“There was no money for things like repairing the roof, and when a leak started, when the ceiling literally began to rot away in an upstairs bedroom, Bertha’s parents just closed that door and pretended it wasn’t happening. Bertha learns to do that, too. It’s easier, closing a door, creating a new reality.”

Substance abuse and neglect characterized Bea’s traumatic childhood. These experiences have hardened Bea and lead her to commit brutal acts to maintain the social status and wealth she obtained on her own. Nevertheless, Bea adopts similar patterns of neglect in her own life by ignoring the emotional impact of her parents’ abuse and focusing only on creating a new life for herself. Both Eddie and Jane commit similar acts of self-neglect, reenacting their pasts even as they try to escape them.

“I think that’s why I liked Jane so much right from the start. She was like me—always looking for an opening, then twisting to fit that opening. I’m sure she thought she was fooling me, thought I’d bought her whole act, but I recognized too much of myself in her not to see what she was doing. Whatever souls were made of, mine and Jane’s were the same—or at least similar enough.”

Eddie sees similarities between Jane and himself: Both are opportunists looking to advance themselves through performances of innocence. Eddie’s last line about the connection between his and Jane’s soul is an allusion to Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. Hawkins uses this line to demonstrate the connection between Eddie and Jane and pay homage to the novel’s literary inspirations. At the same time, the allusion is heavily ironic, showcasing the multiple layers of performance and artifice that the characters have adopted. In the superficial world Hawkins depicts, being “similar enough” is the same as being soulmates, and Eddie borrows someone else’s words to express an apparently heartfelt sentiment.

“I should’ve known that Jane would figure this out. She kept getting so close, and for all that naïve young woman act, I knew she was as sharp as a drawer of fucking knives.”

Eddie recognizes how much he underestimated Jane’s intelligence. He compares Jane’s intelligence to knives to illustrate her ability to see through his performance. This shrewdness is ultimately what saves Jane and frees her to begin her new, independent life at the novel’s conclusion.

“I don’t. I don’t want to be the tragic ingenue, the idiot who got duped by a handsome face and a huge bank account. A victim.”

Jane listens to Bea’s explanation of what happened to Blanche. Bea compares Eddie’s actions to that of a character in a Gothic novel, but Jane resists how this interpretation victimizes her. Here, Hawkins harkens back to Brontë’s novel and the independence that Jane Eyre gains before choosing to marry Edward Rochester. Like Jane Eyre, Jane Bell values her independence and finds happiness only when Bea’s wealth grants her freedom at the end.

“She stands there and waits to feel something. Regret, horror. Anything, really. But again, once it’s done, she’s mostly just relieved and a little tired.”

Bea describes her violent murder of her best friend, Blanche Ingraham, and subsequent lack of regret. This moment serves as a stark contrast to Bea’s final act of saving (or trying to save) Eddie. She displays sociopathic tendencies throughout the novel as she blindly follows her relentless ambition. When Eddie starts the fire, Bea uncharacteristically rushes to save him at the cost of her own life. With this act, Hawkins demonstrates the power of love to humanize even the most brutal of murderers.

“All that time trying to figure out what the secret was, the key to unlock all of this, and it was that simple. He loved me.”

Bea reflects on Jane’s claim that Eddie’s love for Bea is what kept him from turning her in to the police. This pivotal moment shifts Bea away from self-serving ambition and toward her love for Eddie. The revelation triggers Bea’s attempt to save Eddie and marks the end of Bea’s journey and development.

“The house in Thornfield Estates is gone, burned to the ground, and the new life I had tried to build is gone with it.”

Jane contemplates the aftermath of the fire. She equates the house with the life of security that she worked tirelessly to achieve. Throughout the novel, Jane has prioritized material possessions as the key to her safety. Now that the house is destroyed, Jane wonders what will offer her the safety she seeks. Hawkins brings Jane’s story full circle, as it was the house that drew Jane to Eddie at the beginning of the novel. Jane returns to her life as a dog walker as she attempts to navigate life on her own.

“When Bea had opened the panic room door, there’d been a whooshing sound, crackling, a blaze of heat that had sent me stumbling back, and instinct kicked in. I ran. Down the stairs, out the door, onto the lawn, falling into the grass, choking and gasping. In the end, I’d done the thing I’d been doing all my life—I saved myself.”

Jane survives the fire by relying on her instincts and later recognizes her own strength in this moment. She acknowledges how her shrewdness protects her. Jane’s journey toward self-acceptance continues forward.

“I raise my eyes to the lawyer’s, and I don’t have to fake the tears. They’re already there, but they’re tears of relief, not sadness. Tears of fucking joy. Bea Rochester has handed a life to me. Not her life, not ‘Jane Bell’s’ life, but something new, something fresh. Something I can make all mine.”

Jane grows emotional after learning that she has inherited Bea’s wealth. Jane experiences true joy in this moment as she feels hopeful for the future and free from her past. Significantly, she makes a point of saying that this life will be “something new” rather than something borrowed from Bea or Jane Bell; after all the time Jane has spent constructing a new identity from the scraps of other people’s lives, she finally feels free to construct an identity that is “all hers.”