Ahasuerus, King

   A transferred name which is used by Jane to Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Jane asks him to gratify her curiosity about something, now that they are to be Married. Rochester says: ‘I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate.’ Jane replies: ‘Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you think I am a Jew usurer, seeking good investment in land?

   Jane is referring to the Book of Esther, in the Old Testament, where Ahasuerus (otherwise Xerxes, the Greek form of his name) marries Esther, a Jewess, after dismissing his wife Vashti. Esther manages to save her people from the plotting of Haman, because the king says to her: ‘What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom it shall be fulfilled.’ Esther asks instead that her people should be protected. Nineteenth-century readers were expected to pick up these biblical references, steeped as they were in bible stories and characters. Miss Brontë’s reference to this particular incident, however, is somewhat marred by the sentence that follows, with its talk of ‘Jew usurer’, totally irrelevant in this context. It must have been especially offensive to her Jewish readers, who would all have recognized the name of Ahasuerus and understood the allusion. The victory of Esther and her uncle Mordecai over Haman is celebrated yearly in the feast of Purim.