Poetic justice
At the end of the Jane Eyre course, we watched Franco Zeffirelli's 1996 film version, which most people (myself included) consider to be one of the most problematic of a long series of problematic adaptations. (Really, I should have found a copy of I Walked with a Zombie instead.) Still, it was worth showing as an example of how adaptations affect other adaptations--in this case, the 1944 version with Orson Welles (which we also watched) still makes its presence felt. I hadn't watched the film in years, though--since 1996, to be precise--and this time around, I was startled by one of the creative team's odder minor decisions.
If you spend more than ten seconds thinking about the novel's Bertha Mason set-up, it's obvious that everybody in the household must know that a) there's a woman in the attic, and b) Grace Poole is responsible for her. In fact, the only person who doesn't know, and who keeps refusing to find out, is our heroine. However, in the novel, Mrs. Fairfax never shows any awareness that Mr. Rochester is keeping his wife in the attic--which is an important distinction. Mr. Rochester himself tells Jane that "Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts" (ch. XXVII). Mrs. Fairfax's own anxiety about the marriage rests on the disparities in age and class, not on Mr. Rochester's pre-existing commitment. But in the 1996 film, Mrs. Fairfax clearly knows what's going on, to the extent of dropping pointed hints in conversation, recognizing Mr. Mason, and looking awfully anxious during the marriage vows. Nevertheless, she can't quite rouse herself to, you know, say anything to Jane. Which, if you once again spend more than ten seconds thinking about it, makes her Rochester's accomplice in his would-be bigamy attempt.
During the film's Reader's Digest Condensed Version wrap-up, Bertha Mason tosses poor Grace Poole over the banister. It's not clear why Grace needs to die: aside from her drinking habits and gruff manner, she hasn't done anything--well, except let Bertha escape from the room while carrying a burning piece of wood, which of course was rather bad form. But, OK. Presumably, we're supposed to see this as purging Rochester's past (although, like the 1944 version, the film wrecks the symbolic message by having Rochester live in Thornfield's ruins, instead of decamping to Ferndean Manor...). Grace is dispatched. Her patient dispatches herself. Mr. Rochester, after attempting to rescue Bertha, endures a couple of hours in the makeup chair, and winds up with a contact lens and picturesque scar to show for it. Everyone involved with the woman in the attic and/or Rochester's betrayal of Jane has now been suitably punished...
...except for Mrs. Fairfax, who escapes scot-free and is still working for Rochester in the end. And this is why the change to the novel is so odd. If, again, you spend more than ten seconds thinking about it--or maybe five seconds--Mrs. Fairfax is far more culpable than Grace Poole, and almost as culpable as Rochester himself. If this were the novel, something symbolic would have happened to Mrs. Fairfax (besides retirement). But Zeffirelli appears not to have thought through the logical consequences of his alteration to the original plot...