No: Adèle is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall cling closer to her than before.
Chapter 15 · Jane Eyre
Context
Rochester has just revealed that Adèle is the daughter of his former mistress and implied he doubts she is his child. Jane responds by affirming her commitment to Adèle.
Analysis
Jane's syntax builds through accumulation—'parentless,' 'forsaken,' 'disowned'—piling up the ways Adèle has been abandoned, which transforms her from a gentleman's inconvenience into an object of justice. The phrase 'not answerable for' introduces legal language into a domestic scene, positioning Jane as moral adjudicator who refuses to let a child inherit blame. This is one of the novel's clearest moments of Jane claiming moral authority over a social superior.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Jane's integrity is most visible not in grand renunciations but in small resistances—here she quietly refuses to adopt Rochester's view of Adèle, asserting that the child's worth is not determined by legitimacy or paternity, a principle that will later apply to her own choices.