In the mid-nineteenth century, the only way a woman could achieve a dignified and safe place in society was still through marriage. Girls were carefully brought up to that purpose and if they wanted to marry well, they needed to have many cards in their sleeves in order to reach the goal: beauty, social status, connections, fortune and many “accomplishments” as Caroline Bingley elucidated to Elizabeth Bennet :
A(n accomplished) woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved “.
(Pride and Prejudice Chapter VIII)
Mr Darcy will also add to the list :
All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
(Pride and Prejudice Chapter VIII)
No wonder Charlotte Bronte‘s best known character, Jane Eyre, has often been considered as a feminist forerunner, because she defies all those cultural standards. Plain, reserved, she has neither connections, nor fortune to offer but her determination and dignity. She has been brought up to rely on herself only and not on a male figure. In fact, she refuses matrimony twice (Mr Rochester’s first attempt and John Reeves) or she feels mortified when Mr Rochester wants to lavish her with expensive gifts in occasion of the imminent wedding:
the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation.”
(Jane Eyre Chapter XXIV)
But what kind of man in Mr Rochester? If Jane cannot be considered a Cinderella type, certainly Edward Rochester is no Prince Charming . He is rude, arrogant, twice her age, sometimes violent and not even particularly handsome as Jane will notice the first time they meet:
middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young , I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked..”
(Jane Eyre Chapter XII)
Once he is back at Thornfield, he starts toying with Jane’s feeling, he tests and teases her encouraging our heroine to believe he is going to marry a woman of his rank more deserving than her: beautiful Blanche Ingram. He is a liar: he deliberately omits his married status. He is selfish: because he considers bigamy the only reasonable option to ensure HIS happiness. He is definitely unreliable but at the same time he is warm, seductive, passionate, well….. the kind of man women like, even if we profess the opposite. Women never fall head over heels for the John Reeves of the Edgar lintons that people the real world. We like the fire and inevitably we get burnt. But this suicidal attraction for dangerous men is generated by an impulse or better by a syndrome – the “I will save you syndrome” – which affects each of us with no exception, Charlotte Bronte included. What does it mean? We deliberately fall in the trap of this kind of men, because we are convinced we are good enough to change them and turn them into “better” persons, weakening their strongest and most dangerous drives. That is: we are seduced by the Heathcliff type only to turn him into a more controllable Edgar Linton type, a living oxymoron. We already know, it is impossible, in fact, Catherine Earnshaw, the heroine of Wuthering Heights, who had already tried to make this experiment, dies tragically before both of them. Charlotte Bronte’s malice is, therefore, clear: she had created a super macho man, one of the strongest male characters of the literature of the age, only to humiliate and destroy him both physically and psychically, without even hiding a certain sadism. So, while he tragically sinks among the ruins of Thornfield, Charlotte Bronte endows her heroine with a fortune, a family and connections so when she finally makes her homecoming as an independent woman, Mr Rochester and Jane are even. And now that he has become weak and needy because of his blindness (even a little bit too pathetic), she will save him, marrying him and nursing him for the rest of her life. Every woman’s desire…….bah! Only at the end of the novel Charlotte Bronte seems to have mercy upon Mr Rochester (or maybe Jane), making him partially regain his sight:
He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him—the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy.
(Jane Eyre Chapter XXXVIII)
Can this be considered a feminist victory? I really don’t think so.
e-Tinkerbell 
True story, dear professor!
Uhmmmm…..is it your story ? 😀
I don’t think so….i’m a good boy, not a rude plowman!!! Lol
I think that men like Mr, Rochester, liars, violent and trying to solve anything with money (like for example Mr. Rochester always bought Jane items to convince her to marry him), hesitate and unfortunately will always exist.
However, luckily the figure of the woman has developed more and more in a positive way and has begun to take on more and more value (in the context of rights and respect, etc.) and therefore also the man has changed his attitude and behavior towards women, even if unfortunately there are still problems today.
I’m so glad to have found your wonderful blog. It’s a thrill to discover you also wrote about Charlotte Bronte’s classic here. I’ve just finished reading Jane Eyre this week. It will go down as one of my all-time favorites because it was exquisitely written. I do have a question, though: Did anything sexual happen between St. John Rivers and Jane Eyre?
“…and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader shall judge.”
“All the house was still; for I believe all, except St John and myself, were now retired to rest. The room was full of moonlight.”
-chapter 35, Jane Eyre
I’m new at reading classics. My comprehension has yet to be sharpened. Please bear with me.
Thank you very much.
If you really want to study the psychology of this syndrome…there’s a book titled “Women Who Love Too Much” by Robin Norwood. Oh, my! This behavior is so deeply ingrained in us, we hardly recognize it as it is happening to us! I’m not sure “We’ve come a long way, baby!”
Equally interesting in this book, is the perspective of the men who are loved too much. It’s crippling to them unless they become aware of what’s happening. Their voices are heard starting about 1/3 into the book. Fascinating and empowering!
Very interesting ! Thanks a lot.
Cheers
Stefy
What a thoughtful blog post. I enjoyed it (and appreciate the effort to put it together). Thank you for stopping by my blog earlier… All best, Liz.
Thanks for your kind words of appreciation. Wish you a Great Year and ….see you soon. 🙋Stefy
I know a young woman who is a huge admirer of Heathcliff and possesses numerous editions of “Wuthering Heights”. While I greatly enjoyed reading “Wuthering Heights” (and have, fairly recently re-read it) I can not, for the life of me see the attraction of a violent sadist like Heathcliff. His love for Catherine is mixed with profound jelosy, although he does possess a sort of liking for Nelly Dean and, indeed Hareton Earnshaw (despite the degradation to which he reduces the latter).
I agree Kevin. I’ve never been a fan of Heathcliff. I am no masochist.
This “syndrome” belongs to all women. We all love too much ,and as you said, we are attracted by danger, fire and unknown. We all want to save the world and we are always searching for the best part of a man, even if he does not have one. That’s because we see good in everyone and everything. We have to understand that it’s not always like that, understand may take some time though. We should open our eyes to acknowledge the truth of this situation; we should spend more time on ourself; we should look to the future. Sometimes we need to save us from the world, before we try to save or change it.
Yes, it is true that this syndrome affects all or almost all girls who think they can change and transform the man they fell in love with and make him a better person. This “syndrome” reminds me of some scenes from a TV series I saw “Once upon a time” where the fairytale princess Belle in love with the Dark Lord tries to make him a better person by saving him from the darkness thanks to love. So I am of the opinion that when love is at stake you can change for the other person.
Unfortunately this “syndrome” belongs to all women. All of us are attracted by danger and mystery, needless to deny it, the “risk” has something fascinating about it. I believe that what attracts us is the hope of having the power to change men. We believe these men can change, but I think they must have willpower, and above all they must be in love. We all agree that it is better to choose a man like Edgar Linton, it’s easy to say, but we can’t help it, the “mystery” is more attractive and irresistible.
The syndrome of “I will save you” or even the Red Cross syndrome allows women to be able to save the man from the “dark” side and to bring him back in the direction of love, sweetness and the blue prince with risk or even certainty that man does not even want to be saved.
If before man was the object of desire with this syndrome he becomes an instrument of self-affirmation.
As we have seen before the woman was realized only with marriage while Charlotte Bronte with Jane Eyre lays the foundations for one of the first female models. The protagonist search her independence by working and studying and the writer at the end of the book overturns the social positions of men and women;
At this point, however, Jane in my opinion seems to be satisfied with a man definitely under her reach.
I think the “I will save you” syndrome belongs to each of us women. Many of us are convinced that our love is enough to make a relationship last. We feel strong, and at the same time we delude ourselves that our “him” can change, that we can change him. Well, I think sometimes our being “champions of good” doesn’t make us realize the real problems. We should let ourselves go a bit … without thinking and keeping everything under control.
This syndrome doesn’t affect just women. In my opinion, we men are also conditioned in a way from the depth of our psyche. Maybe, the Mystery is what creates the attraction and in which lies the charm. The mystery is regarded almost as a magical spark that brings two people to closer. The attraction between a man and a woman is something very powerful, it happens to feel attracted to people we don’t even know well, who capture our mind and body.
I think that this “I will save you” syndrome can belong to all women. Because women are attracted by mystery and all its risks. We love to see the change from the dark badboy to a soft kind guy, who care about us.
In all the novels we read there is always the mysterious man, who always catches the attention of the protagonist. But only in one the woman protagonist ends up with the one man that seems perfect, but at the end she is more attracted by the mysterious one.
It’s true. I also think that this “I will save you” syndrome belongs to all women. We are attracted to the difficult, sometimes even the opposite of ourselves and we feel strong. We think that we can change our “Higliff” and make it more like us, but this very often doesn’t happen and we are disappointed along with our expectations. Maybe we should learn to be less afraid, to wait and to look for something that is more like us to make us feel good. Perhaps this is the only way we will be able to understand that there is no need to “save” someone.
In my opinion, the syndrome of “I will save you”, doesn’t belong just to women but also to men.
I think, in fact, that also men can fall in love with women that are exactly the same as Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, just in a “female version”. Us men, can be so attracted to this type of women, that often, even if we try to do everything for them, we just get hurt.
I believe Jane Eyre is affected either by Wendy syndrome or by Florence Nightingale syndrome more than by “I will save you” syndrome. Perhaps she may be stricken by both pathologies. At the beginning Jane wants to change Mr Rochester, she is attracted by his charming Byronic side and here, in that moment she is trapped. Then she will come back to him, when she will be economically stronger than him. Her individual Bildung will be complete and thus she will be mature enough to start a new life. Obviously, intellective and psychic tension among them remains unmodified. They seem to be telepathic: they manage to convey – unilaterally – at great distances by means of dreams. Besides I believe she always loved behaving like a caregiver and a do-gooder towards her partner. This obsequious behaviour is wide-spread in human relationships and it hits both sexes, indistinctly. Everyone knows this genre of unhealthy relationships is very harmful. Despite this, it often happens women or men fall in this mistake for the fear of abandonment or simply for natural tendency. Many people may prefer silencing their drives, their emotions just to save an unbalanced liaison or an ambiguous friendship. Firstly Jane Eyre is humiliated by Mr Rochester, eventually she feels pleasure to heal her husband. She could look like masochist. Maybe she is masochist. Or maybe she judges him inoffensive and tame. She feels herself as Florence Nightingale, before Florence Nightingale was Florence Nightingale in Crimean War. In that way she considers her-self a devoted domestic nurse. A missionary such as her cousin-suitor John Rivers.
Thus, following this arguable argument, we could state Jane Eyre initially is driven by the “I will save you” syndrome, then there is disaffection of her to Mr Rochester. Only when she reaches Ferndean, his rural mansion, and she verifies miserable conditions of her lover, she chooses (because Jane, at this point, has become an independent woman) to nurse him for the rest of life.
Feminist, not feminist, masochist, not masochist, beyond all this it is a legitimate and respectable choice.
I believe that this syndrome does not affect only women, but can also affect men. I think men can fall in love with girls because they want to save them and maybe feel better with themselves. I’m sure that some men fell in love with some girls, even just to prove them wrong when they say “all men are the same”. I’ve never been afflicted by this syndrome, but maybe one day, who knows…
People often say that love can do anything but I believe that, in certain situations, love is not enough. The Red Cross syndrome belongs to women who, prompted by good intentions, are convinced that they can “cure” their men and be able to improve or even transform them. It follows a sick and perverse dynamic in the couple. I believe that the violent man can change, but I also believe that he must want this thing with all of himself and he must be aware of how serious and dangerous his behavior is. However, this kind of man does not have this awareness and believes that their behavior is not so serious. Often they are men who have experienced this dynamic as children and have unknowingly taken it as a model. Such men need therapy to help them dig deep into their hearts, and of course, love can certainly help them, but I believe that much more is needed.
I think men like Mr, Rochester, liars, violent and materialistic, exist and unfortunately always will.
Fortunately, however, the figure of the woman has grown more and more in a positive way and has begun to take on more and more value And therefore also the man has changed his attitude and behavior towards them, even if unfortunately there are still problems today.
It is indisputable, the syndrome of the “I will save you” belongs to all women. Is that good or bad? Well, it dependes on your point of view. I don’t think that a woman consciously decides to devote herself completely to the “care” of a man. I think it is more of an instinct thing. Evere woman is led by an unsurpassed ambition, which runs through her whole life. In every experiences she is able to found new goals and regarding men it is making them better. It is like if she had inside of herself a great optimism accompanied by a lot of self-confidence. I think in the end it is not a bad thing, but it must have a balance, because you can not cancel yourself for a man. So women have to understand that they can try to “change” a man, but they must remember that they must first take care of themselves and the others, because it may happen that otherwise no one will do it.
Red cross syndrome is trapping women. They think they can improve man. They go beyond the concept of love, they begin to love for two. Man is not aware of his own behavior and minimizes it. Love is not enough in these cases. The woman has only one way out. WE NEED TO ASK FOR HELP !!!
Many traits differentiate women all around the globe. Still, I reckon all girls share one great characteristic: the I will save you Syndrome. This ‘Nightingalian’ feature must not be ignored. A woman will fight and protect who’s dear to her with everything she has.
From an emotional standpoint, this is a beautiful feature that a lot of men should try to learn (people like Mr. Rochester maybe). However, this denotes how deeply different are the connotations to men and women in our society.
Probably we men too should get used to let other people help us. It would help us grow closer to women
I agree on this phenomenon. the woman is much more sentimental than the man. This leads the woman to become very attached to a person. As for the story of Jane Eyre, we are talking about a difficult period. Life had no value, society was male chauvinist. This led the woman more and more to exasperation. The “I’ll save you” phenomenon was becoming more and more widespread. On this I agree. But I disagree on today’s situation. Life has changed, man is still the same but society leads to a different life. Surely the woman still suffers and is underpaid compared to the man. the “I’ll save you” phenomenon still exists, but we must not generalize it. Today there is something positive.
Red Cross syndrome or “I will save you”
is often common in us women. The woman finds herself trapped in relationships with needy, fragile or narcissistic partners, where she plays the role of the “caring partner”, neglecting her own indisposition and forgetting her own needs. They hardly manage to break up an unsatisfactory relationship because they are too worried about making the person to whom they are linked feel bad. In my opinion we have to understand that besides the “charm” of danger or fire, which many women like, there is something else and we have to open our eyes and think more about ourselves or maybe think the best for us.
I think men can have this syndrome too. It is true that it is more complicated, but, even in some movies, the man falls in love with the woman only to prove that he is not one of many. Often and willingly the story ends that they live happily ever after, because they fall in love seriously, but these are fairytale endings
I think that the “I will save you” syndrome is characteristic of all women. Each of us has this ideal, maybe because, through films and books, people have always made us believe that true happiness in love is found by “saving” the other person. The films and books made us believe that the best love stories were those between the bad man and the quiet and loyal woman. I think women, independent as they are, need a shoulder to support themselves on for life, which simply works as an help but which, in my opinion, is necessary. We women like the man who does bad things and who is sweet only with us. The man who is too good, condescending, does not like women but tires them. As for Jane Eyre, I think that she is a strong woman and that she has fought a lot, for this reason, whatever choice she takes at the end of the book, it will always be right precisely because it is her choice and therefore her victory. Victory is precisely in the possibility of choosing, whether the choice can be seen in the wrong way, or that the choice can be seen in the right way.
I do not know why but without being informed I also believed that the “i will save you” syndrome can “afflict” only women. It comes naturally to me to think that women have this “gift” if we can call it like that because I usually find this feature in many books and movies. I prefer to use the term gift, or even talent, because personally I think it is a more positive term. I am very selfless, I always look for the others’ wellness and sometimes I do not pay attention to mine. I do not pretend to be affected by the “I will save you “syndrome but it has always been my feature to be like this, I always try to help others in any way. If I see a person with many problems and is not as happy as I am, I try to do everything possible so that those problems no longer afflict that person. This happens especially for the people I love, starting from my family, my parents, my girlfriend and my friends. Returning to the post, I agree with what said. According to me, Jane Eyre always does what she thinks is right for her, and not for someone else. But this is a feature given by Charlotte.
I will end just with a thought and a question for you, teacher.
This thought crossed my mind. We studied that at the Bennets’ time, if a women wanted to have a family or at least have the chance to live a dignified life and be protected by a man, she had to get married. So I believed that in order to have a quiet life and a family, the woman had to “settle” with the first man she is addressed to, even because she would have no chance to decide. So whether she liked him or not, the woman was almost forced to love the man she was married with, and then I guess she will love him in time but in a more feelingly way. So, I assume that over time, the affection for the husband may grow . So if that husband is the victim of an accident and, such as for Mr. Rochester remains invalid, it may be that the woman contracts the “I will save you” syndrome, just because she loves her man, because she feels pain for him and because without him her life can’t go on? So she acts like Jane and she starts to take care of her husband? I believe that in this case is not the syndrome, but it is just her affection and altruism for a person she loves.
Can love grow over time, even if you’re indifferent to the man you have been obliged to marry ? Possible. If this man becomes an invalid, nursing and looking after him may be an occasion to develop a certain attachment , but love, Love is something else! 😜
I think Jane Eyre is the best example of independent heroine at those times: she has neither breed nor beauty, plus having Mr Rochester as the one to conquer is a true pain. Catherine from “Wuthering Heights” has this challenge too, but she is definitely higher ranked socially than Heathcliff. So, I believe Jane Eyre can be considered as a female winner because she manages to marry (and save) a man who is above her, without any help and due to her working ability. If she is happy, she is a winner in my opinion, even if Rochester is destroyed at the end of the novel.
I would rather call it the “Red Cross nurse syndrome” as if we (women) had to cure men illness (their bad behaviours. I think all women are attracted by a mysterious man, that keeps us hanging, never giving us certainties. Referring to the first part of this post, I am so glad that society has evolved an changed in better. I would say that the tables have turned. Women now expect more from men (very similar things to what men wanted from a women in those times).
I believe that this “I will save you syndrome” is bad both for women and men: if we are attracted to people like Rochester or also Lovelace, as we saw last year, we suffer a lot.
We are convinced we will change that person we love, turn him or her in a better person, more controllable but the point is that, you can’t change people if they don’t want to.
We have a good example in Wuthering heights, where Cathy tries to change Heathcliff or in Clarissa and both novels have an unhappy ending….
Not being a woman, I can look at the subject from a shallow point of view. We know that girls in Victorian age were still tied to marriage: with it you can go away from your family. So, especially if a girl came from a simple family, she could not have the privilege of choosing whom to marry with.
Yet, if the girls had been able to choose, they would certainly have preferred a more passionate and instinctive man rather than a “standard” man. These passionate men sometimes attract women but if they get too close, they get hurt. This theme can be explained with the meaning of the name Heathcliff: Emily Bronte choose this name not by chance. Indeed, we can stand out the word “heat”: if a girl gets too close to the fire she gets burned. Also, the word “cliff” has a meaning: the waves of the sea break on the rocks and this happens to all the women that fall in love with this type of men (e.g. Catherine).
On the other hand, I think that men can be changed, but only those who want to be changed. We can consider Arthur and Gilbert in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Arthur is the classic Byronic hero who even on his deathbed will never regret what he did to Hellen, so he doesn’t want and cannot be changed. Besides, Gilbert, despite he’s a jealous and even violent man, he has a behaviour that can be changed.
In short, if I am honest… (and I am sure I will receive a complaint from all the male people for what I’m going to say), whether you are a boy or a girl, keep calm and stay single!
What life would be like without the pangs of love!!!The joy of living is all about this!
I think that the “I will save you” syndrome is mostly seen on women, but it can be seen even in men sometimes. Allthough, I don’t think that every one has it. In every case one person tries to take care of the other and to change them in some ways. Often this thing go wrong in reality, because when one of the couple have changed the other starts to not loving him/her anymore.
I agree with the fact that maybe all women (or at least most) have the “i will save you” syndrome. The woman wants to “save” the man and this is a beautiful thing but it can be invasive from the man’s point of view. In my opinion, women must try to understand men and if possible improve them and make them complete. I believe, however, that men who try to save the woman they love also have this syndrome. The man wants to save the woman to feel better and happy.
However, I think that it is better just to understand and be close to the person you love. It is wrong to try to save or change theme because one person falls in love with another for the characteristics he/she has. I think that trying to change the person you love would lead to losing that “different” that made us lose our minds.
In my opinion, this “syndrome” does not belong only to women, but to every human person. men can get close to a woman, feeling a need for affection in her, the need to have someone by their side who reassures them, who supports them; from this point of view, I find that there has therefore been a radical change in society, we have in fact gone from having the man who expects a lot from the woman, to having the woman who must be satisfied by the man.
Personally, I am a few against your view, but let me explain.
Obviously the women in that period were treated like object, they couldn’t talk, they couldn’t vote, and couldn’t neither decide who they wanna marry, they literally have no freedom of expression… almost every marriage were organized by the family and it was mostly made for money, or social rank, and being born in that situation with the mother who lives in this way, and being educated in that way, only few woman have had the possibility to really change this rule, and do something about it, and decide who they wanna marry for exemple..
I think that what Jane did was quite trivial and useless.. she was trying to marry a person because of his “flirt” ability, and was trying to change that person, and nothing could be more wrong than that.
She doesn’t physically like him, he was rude, sometimes violent, arrogant, twice her age, and despite everything, she wanted to do that. In my opinion a person can change for less or more a 10% of his personality, the other 90% has been imprinted in our mind since we were born… and so what does she really wanted to do? Change that little 10%? Change a person who doesn’t want to change? Change him to have the best husband? Nah, completely useless, and for this reason I think that Jane did all of this “mess”, just because she wanted to show everybody that “If you want, you can”, and that was a tough message for women in the early ‘900, as much tough that 40 years later (less or more) bring to the first women’s suffrage. So maybe yes it was a good and strong independent and feminism message, but it may be applied anytime and anywhere, with women or man as well.
I believe that the “I’ll save you” syndrome is also a topical issue. It is certainly a feature that occurs much more in women who tend to protect men. However, I note that nowadays, since the context is not that of Jane Eyre for example, but the roles and freedoms that women have are different, this phenomenon also develops in men. In fact, there are many women, or mainly girls, who are a bit like rebellious souls and if they find a partner with another character, it is possible that this will try to lead them to the right path. So I come to say that if previously this syndrome was exclusively (or almost) female, now it depends on the contexts and relationships of people. It might sound like a comment that devalues women as a “savior” but I think this means that in today’s society, women and men are almost equated in some ways.
In my opinion this “syndrome” is not linked only to women but to all living beings. In the past it was perhaps linked to women but now a change is being seen, in fact it is not the man who is indispensable for the woman but in recent years the woman is becoming indispensable for men. In my opinion this change is correct
I think she just plain did the right thing. the fact that she has had a difficult life does not imply the fact that she cannot choose to make other certain sacrifices, especially if love is at stake. and consequently reading the post I did not find certain attitudes on the part of the protagonist. I am very clear about its meaning but it does not seem the case with history
As a man, I can say that in my opinion men also suffer from this ‘syndrome’, if, however, they are not in love.
When you are not in love you are attracted to that person only by that person’s aesthetic and not by their inner side. You will therefore tend to modify his behavior and his character, to please you.
But when you lose your mind for someone, this constant search for a person’s change takes a back seat because in your eyes that person is already perfect.
So yes, at first glance this ‘syndrome’ comes out in both men and women (mostly in women) but as mentioned before, if you fall in love, you will not have the intention of changing the slightest thing about your him / her.
As for the post, I think society has really taken a big step forward at a time when the things that men expected from women are now the things that women expect from men.
I think the “I’ll save you” syndrome is very current. many women try to find a man who then somehow try to change. I think that changing a man is possible and in some cases right but I think that the woman in question must ask herself “to what extent is it worth it?”. in fact in such a situation many times it is the woman who is injured by the relationship. this is because perhaps he deludes himself and tries to change what she cannot change.
I believe that this ‘syndrome’ also belongs to the gender of men. I have never been involved, but i think that men are also trying to do and always give the best to think and believe that they have done the right thing , and show that they are different from other men. Even though this ‘sindrome’ is more characteristic of women because men are more inclined to lead a ‘dark and dangerous’ life.
In my personal opinion, this syndrome exists not only in women, but even in men. Like literature teaches us, it’s more frequent that a girl falls in love with a dangerous, or violent man. But I think that men can live similar conditions. Anyway, nowadays this phenomenon of violent, or dangerous men is less diffused, but it’s never to be not considered.
the “I will save you” syndrome, makes the in love young women feeling able to change the character of their lovers, being able to save him and bringing him to the “white” side, of sweetness, kindness, trust and rationality. Often, however, the men they are in love with, just like Heatcliff and Mr. Rochster have no intention about changing, or being changed, they belong to the dark, they are uncontrollable and irrational men, certainly more attractive than the boring Edgar Linton of the moment, but even more dangerous. In fact, the poor in love ladies instead of saving them, end up as victims, such as Chaterine Earnshaw and Jane who, despite her newly acquired fortune, finds herself acting as a caregiver to a selfish man and now devoid of charm. In my opinion, more than the idea of changing these “hot” men, the girls hope that these men so irrational and uncontrollable, rather than change completely, can acquire kindness and sweetness only towards them, making them feel somehow special and unique. “Being a strong man’s weakness” ..
In my opinion, the “I’ll save you” syndrome is not determined by gender (male or female) but by the feelings experienced for the other person and by a problem of the person who looks after a second person. When I love someone (relative, partner or friend) I want them to be well and happy, so if there are any bad habits I try to be the one to solve them. Often, however, people with problems have serious problems, they can be violent and dangerous so the helper becomes a victim. But what’s underneath this? According to some psychological studies, the helper always hasn’t had enough love from his parents, so he or she try to compensate for that emptiness by carrying all the problems.
So, maybe due to the habits of the society of the time women were more likely to inherit this syndrome but nowadays I think the chances are more balanced.