Rochester and Jane were together joking with each other, and Rochester made the comment that Jane was waiting for "the men in green." Jane then jokingly replied that "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," and by doing this, Charlotte Brontë refers to a famous Victorian idea that fairies had vanished from Britain during the late eighteenth century. Nicola Bown reported that this belief arose in traditional folklore, where he incorporated stories recalled by Tabby, Brontë's nursemaid, who likely believes that the Haworth textile mills drove away the fairies. Since industrialization drastically changed the countryside, much Victorians envisioned that the natural scenery that was formerly populated by fairies was replaced by machinery, railroads, and factories.
Nicola Bown explains that there were people who did not even believe in fairies, yet they continued to use their disappearance to symbolize the destruction industrialization has caused. The cultural critic John Ruskin, did not believe in fairies, but argues that modernization, such as railroads and factories, took away the natural beauty of the countryside. This makes the withdrawal of the fairies a symbol for environmental and cultural defeat. Charlotte Brontë depicts this cultural concept during the joking conversation that Jane and Rochester had. Jane's imagination and intellect are revealed when she automatically realizes what fairy joke Rochester was making, and so she responds with a sarcastic tone. Mrs. Fairfax overhears their discussion and is confused by what they are talking about, marking this moment as one of the first occasions of mental connection between Jane and Rochester.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte [Currer Bell]. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Smith, Elder and Co., 1847. Cove Collective, Southeastern Louisiana University.
Brown, Nicola. Fairies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
“The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke | Art UK.” Artuk.Org, https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-fairy-fellers-master-stroke-117…. Accessed 30 July 2026.