Why Didn T Cause Antoinette's Death

While preparing for the debate where I argued that Rochester didn’t cause Antoinette’s death, I realized how convoluted and inescapable both Rochester and Antoinette’s situation was. Antoinette especially seemed to be behind from the start of the novel. She was alone and an outsider in her family and her community, her mother’s unsuccessful marriage was not a very good precedent for her own, her mother had a history of mental issues, and the list goes on. Antoinette’s relationship with Rochester was prearranged and set up to fail by the fault of no one person, riddled with misunderstandings, and a confusing mixture of different cultures not understood by either party. Antoinette deserves the reader’s pity and sympathy because of the unavoidable mental problems caused in her early life and also the sequence of misunderstandings and the cultural distance between her and Rochester that resulted in Antoinette’s lacking
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has pity and sympathy as synonyms of each other. Although both words similar meanings, the context in which they should be used is different. Pity is defined as “a strong feeling of sadness or sympathy for someone or something” while sympathy is described as “the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else's trouble or misfortune.” Feeling pity for someone means feelings sad about their circumstances or difficulties. Sympathy means the act of sharing the painful feelings of another; an understanding why they are in the misfortunate situation they are in. I am positive that any sane person would agree that Antoinette’s situation is a pity. However, I contend that she deserves the reader’s sympathy because no matter what Antoinette could have done to change the course of her life it would have been too little because of her various mental and situational