You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.
Chapter 23 · Edward Rochester
Context
Rochester, having revealed that he never intended to marry Blanche Ingram, directly asks Jane to marry him and acknowledges the social differences between them even as he proposes.
Analysis
Rochester lists Jane's disadvantages in a piling-up of adjectives—'poor and obscure, and small and plain'—yet embeds them in a concessive clause ('as you are') that acknowledges them only to set them aside. The syntax enacts a kind of bracketing: he names the qualities that should disqualify her, then makes his proposal anyway. But by voicing these qualities at all, he paradoxically keeps them in play, unable to fully ignore the social script that says this marriage is inappropriate.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that even Rochester's most passionate declarations can't fully escape the class consciousness that structures his world—he must name Jane's 'deficiencies' to show he's overcoming them, but that very act reminds the reader (and Jane) that by social standards, she is deficient.