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Close Reading Of Jane Eyre

Decent Essays

Through a close reading of the selected passage of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, a reader can see that Jane attempts to separate herself from her decisions by personifying her emotions and giving them a specific voice, which strongly reflects the societal views of the time. At this point in the story, Jane has discovered, on her wedding day, that Mr. Rochester is still married to a woman named Bertha, and that woman still lives in his house. Distraught, Jane locks herself in her room and tries to decide what she should do. When she wakes up the next day, she is again confronted with what she needs to do in the wake of her discovery. When Jane awakens, she asks herself what she should do and receives the answer “Leave Thornfield at once” (343). She describes this as the answer her mind gives her, …show more content…

It instead shows Jane’s inner struggle to do what is “right” versus what she desires. The separation between the voice of herself and her thoughts exhibits her helplessness to change her path from what her mind has already decided. This displays the heavy influence society has on Jane, which is further proven by the personification of Jane’s two strongest rivaling emotions. The heavy influence of a patriarchal dominated society is evident in her “Conscience” being a strong male figure, whereas her “Passion” is a weaker, feminine figure. Similarly, the strongest reasoning for Jane to leave Thornfield is driven by the patriarchal demand for a female to remain “pure” until holy marriage, rather than Jane’s own desire to leave, further solidifying the idea that the voice given to her mind is not just her own internal thoughts, but also the demands and expectations of

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