You are no ruin, sir—no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.
Chapter 37 · Jane Eyre
Context
Jane rejects Rochester's self-description as a ruin, insisting he is still vital and worth loving.
Analysis
Jane seizes Rochester's metaphor and reverses it: where he called himself a dead tree, she insists he's 'green and vigorous,' alive and generative. Her extended image—plants growing 'whether you ask them or not'—removes his agency from the equation: she and others will love him regardless of whether he permits it, which means he can't refuse her by claiming unworthiness. The phrase 'your strength offers them so safe a prop' redefines his value from beauty or wholeness to utility and protection, relocating what makes him lovable.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Jane rewrites the terms of Rochester's self-conception, refusing the tragic mode he's chosen and insisting instead on a narrative of mutual dependence—her counterclaim isn't just emotional reassurance but a struggle over who gets to control the metaphor that defines their relationship.