Adele Varnes is a character who was created by Charlotte Brontë for the 1847 classic, Jane Eyre. In the original, Adele was a minor character who was used as a plot device to unify Edward Rochester, Adele’s ward, and Jane Eyre, her governess. In Reader, I Murdered Him (2022), Betsy Cornewll reimagines Adele, giving her character depth and a fleshed-out backstory, painting her as spunky, strong, gorgeous, and bi.
Adele spends her childhood in France at the Moulin Rouge, a cabaret theater that her mother and other women use as a front for a brothel. She loves her mother dearly and recalls that time in her life with great fondness. When her mother is taken by consumption, Edward Rochester, who may or may not be her father, takes her as his ward.
Before she is sent to boarding school, Adele studies with her governess, Jane. When her English writing skills fail to improve, Rochester and Jane devise a plan to have her write to her cousin Eric, hoping that the excitement and allure of a faraway friend will help her in the task. Eric and Adele find kinship and even love for each other through their correspondence. They both write about their feelings, and more than feelings, in their sometimes-steamy letters.
Adele continues to write to Erik at boarding school, but a complication arises when she meets a girl named Hannah. Adele finds herself infatuated with Hannah and is determined to help her rise through the ranks of society, as she is a scholarship girl with an impoverished family. As their friendship grows, Adele finds herself falling for Hannah.
Adele expresses a tension between her feelings for Erik and Hannah. She feels more connected to Hannah because she is physically there, but on the days she receives letters from Eric, her feelings for him become stronger. Eventually, she comes to realize that “It was in that moment that I knew I loved them both”.
After her bi awakening, Adele accepts her bisexuality without hesitation. She reminisces fondly about the girls at La Moulin who were similarly oriented and sees her bisexuality as normal because of that exposure in her youth. Adele doesn’t, however, share her bisexuality with the other girls at her boarding school. As this is a period piece, sharing her non-heterosexual orientation would be well outside the scope of norms at the time.
Towards the end of the book, Adele finds herself involved with a club of thieves. The club is largely comprised of LGBT members. Here she finds safety and a place where she can be free to share her bisexuality.
Adele is a character who is reclaimed from a classic. Her bi story is painted onto a background that doesn’t often contain bi characters, which makes her representation feel like a reclaiming in its own right. Her story is quite relatable, especially to readers in their pubescent years, who may be discovering their own sexuality.