In George Eliot’s Romola Eliot made a conscious effort to combat the reader’s common association between beauty and goodness. Tito’s exotic, and alluring appearance. According to Nello, his face was, “as warm and bright as a summer morning”(Eliot Ch. 4 E-Text). His attractive looks were juxtaposed with his selfish and conniving attitude, thus destroying the assumption of goodness based on Tito’s looks. A similar technique is used in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Brontë contrasts Blanche Ingram’s physical beauty with her cruel personality and similarly compares Mr. Rochester’s unattractive looks with his passion.

When Jane first encounters Miss Ingram, her elegance creates an intimidating persona. Upon closer examination though, she proved to be, “very showy…but not genuine.”(188) Like a dog, Miss Ingram hs been well trained to perform but does not act or think on her own, she puts on a performance. Blanche Ingram puts on airs of grandeur, but in reality shows herself only to be putting on an act. According to Jane Eyre, “her heart was poor, her mind barren by nature.”(188) She was “self-conscious”(175) and delighted in boosting herself up by exposing the ignorance of others. Her cruelty towards Adéle reveals her true self when she treats the child with “coldness and acrimony.”(188)

Dissimilar to Blanche Ingram, Mr. Rochester has nothing in his appearance to attract others to him. When Jane is first called into his presence to keep his company, she cannot help staring at him because of his unusual nature. When asked if she thought him handsome Jane bluntly replied, “No, sir.”(133) Some time later, after a growing friendship between the two she, again, cannot help but stare; her eyes were “drawn involuntarily to his face.”(177)His strength and wit attract Jane as well as his goodness towards her.

In this way Brontë challenges the reader’s assumptions about beauty within and without when she molds the characters in Jane Eyre. Using this technique she exposes the fallacy of goodness always accompanying beauty. Both Bronte and Eliot work to tear down the walls of prejudice with which the readers begin their novels.