Patricia L. Herrick
 
 

Bertha Rochester is considered insane both by Rochester and by the common opinion of the day. She is kept locked on the third floor of Thornfield instead of being placed in an asylum for therapy. While Bertha's treatment would not necessarily have been regarded as terribly cruel, it would not be considered as the best or most modern approach. Jane Eyre was written after the Madhouse Act (1828) and Lunatics Act (1845), which provided for a safer, more controlled environment in which to keep the insane. The implementation of moral management in the asylums made them more modern, humane, and medically sound. Yet, the action in the novel takes place before these two acts and so the contemporary audience may have considered Rochester keeping Bertha locked in the house as outdated. But still, keeping the insane at home would have been an alternative to the embarrassment of public committal to an asylum. Elaine Showalter summarizes in her study The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980, in the chapter titled "Domesticating Insanity" (26-27) how class played a part in keeping the insane at home or committing them to an asylum:

Class remained a strong determinant of the individual's psychiatric career. The rich could avoid the stigma of certification by keeping mad relatives at home, or by seeking private care. Among the wealthier classes, bizarre behavior could be described as nervousness or eccentricity until the patient became unmanageable, suicidal, or violent. For a steep price, the rich lunatic might be put to lodge with a doctor who specialized in the discreet care of a few eccentric "guests"; sent to one of the large private asylums that catered to the rich, such as Laverstock House or Ticehurst; or shipped off to be hidden away in a Continental maison de sante.

The middle classes regarded the public asylums as a disgrace, the "Bluebeard's cupboard" of the neighborhood, "an evil to be staved off as long as possible." When institutionalization became unavoidable, they sought out the cheaper private asylums, or the registered hospitals such as Bethlem and St. Luke's, where most patients paid a small fee. But insanity was an expensive disease, especially when it struck down the family breadwinner, and thus middle-class patients too were often forced to seek public assistance.

For the poor, however, the public asylum was a welcome alternative to the workhouse or the home care. . . . So, while the asylum was considered to be a system of national pride and modern advancement for the Victorians, insanity was still considered embarrassing. Rochester's confinement of Bertha then would have been within the bounds of acceptability.