Jane Eyre by Emily Bronte

Throughout time, the moon has been seen as an important symbol in Western culture. Due to the moon’s constant presence every night, it has come to be associated with death and rest. Furthermore, it is seen as a symbol of beauty and perfection that cannot be attained by humans. Finally, the moon’s cyclical movement has caused it to be representative of emotions, time and change. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, the moon appears in many different circumstances. Early in the novel, the moon foreshadows the failure of a relationship between Heathcliff and the older Catherine. As the novel unfolds, the moon’s appearance begins to reveal the true inner nature or state of characters. Finally, the moon begins to symbolize the impact of change, or the lack of change, over time on the characters of Heathcliff and the younger Catherine. Throughout Wuthering Heights, Brontë uses the cosmological body of the moon to foreshadow the inability to attain perfection, to reveal the truth about certain characters, and finally to demonstrate effects of change on humans in order to emphasize the power of nature in the lives of humans.

Jane is desperate for love and therefore her vibrant passion creates her vivid personality. Charlotte Bronte’s writing style is complex, and emotion filled. Her sentences are contain numerous adjectives and sensual images. Brontes unique style is powerful and strong and filled with emotion and imagery as we captures in the life of Jane eyre. Jane is a strong willed and a strong-minded individual which shines through even at her earliest years. Living a Gateshead, Jane displayed her strong nature. For example, Charlotte writes about Jane after she was hit by her cousin, “my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigor." (p. 22)

Jane Eyre was perceived as a female gothic novel due to the images of darkness within the novel. Bronte constructs the female language by giving the main protagonist a gothic imagination. This imagination is elaborated through the representation of imagery. It is first shown in the novel the red room which one could argue is associated with darkness and is evidently a source of punishment for her, ‘Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in”(Brontë and Dunn, 2001,p.9). We can depict from the verb ‘lock her in’ that this room is a form of isolation for Jane and a source of entrapment for her when she acts out. The fact that she is being imprisoned even at home reflects how the private sphere and norms the Victorian era harbored effectively

Violence is the most recurrent gothic convention used in Jane Eyre, which is prominent in Charlotte Brontë's effective development of the novel and the character of Jane Eyre, who, throughout this novel, is searching for a home in which she would have a sense of belonging and love which would ultimately resolve this exact unfulfilled need she had as a child. The neglect she experienced in her childhood is manifested in the way she is treated by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, as in the first page of the novel Jane Eyre admits: ‘Me, she had dispensed from joining the group, saying, 'She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance’’. This opening shows how there is a clear line of separation drawn between Jane and her relatives due to her complicated family background which consequently results in their reluctance to accept her into their environment. These complications lead to her maltreatment, which also adds on to the violence she experiences acting as a catalyst for the development of the character and her subconscious quest.

“This book might have been written by a woman but certainly not a lady.” It is bildungsromane (Triska); a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist (Dictionary.com). Jane Eyre was a very shy, plain, and reserved person. Even though she had a very plain look she had a passion that wasn’t expected of her (Green). She also had hopes and dreams and aspirations. So I wonder, how might Jane Eyre react to the women of today?

Throughout volume one of Jane Eyre, Jane finds an outlet to a difficult childhood in Gateshead, Lowood, and her recent move to Thornfield through reading and painting. The books she reads represents her desires, and emotions that would otherwise be difficult to express. She also finds sanctity from her difficult life though painting landscapes with watercolors. Charlotte Bronte uses art and literature to show the readers Jane’s subconscious desires that on occasion even she might not understand.

At Gateshead Jane Eyre grew up with her malicious cousins and Aunt. This fictitious location is placed in a part of England north to London. The name Gateshead has significant meaning in the book. This location was the “gateway” to the rest of the world. Also, this is where Jane grew up, so evidentially it was the “head” or beginning of all her tribulations in life. Throughout the rest of the book, all that Jane has to deal with is linked back to her childhood there at Gateshead. Abused verbally and physically by her Aunt and cousins, Jane felt an outsider among her kinsmen. She was ostracized by Aunt Reed from the rest of the family. At one point when her Aunt became extremely oppressive, she locked adolescent Jane into the dreaded

Jane was shown disapproval, but that was what motivated her to keep spreading her belief. “The nature of the consequence modifies the person's tendency to change or repeat the actions in the future.” (Analysis of Jane Eyre 3) After the scene of Jane yelling at her cousin John, she was locked into the “red-room” which was a remote room of which Mr. Reed died. This room made Jane realize that if she did not encase her emotions at certain times, she will have to suffer even worse punishments.

The first chapter of Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, creates the feeling of constraint and imprisonment that the main character is experiencing. The author conveys this feeling to the readers by utilizing diction and imagery. With these literary elements the reader is able to comprehend the emotions the main character feels. Charlotte Bronte applies imagery to demonstrate how the character is affected by what she sees. In the chapter it states, "...

Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” is not the most uplifting book to read with its gothic perimeters and spurious medieval nature. But, Brontë does do a great job at creating and maintaining the underlining motifs that can be seen throughout the novel. These motifs then influence Jane’s character development, which is normally seen as a coming of age but her growth is not necessarily positive. In Eyre’s process of coming of age she shows signs of bitterness and insecurity, solicitous and submissiveness, and ill-found love. All of these traits can be seen through three of her most interesting pieces of art, art which acts as medium to her emotions.

Belonging, equality, and society verses self are all common ideas in the media. These themes will always be present in the world because humans are always searching for self-actualization, to be treated as equal or better, and to keep self-morals despite pressuring societies. The novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontё explores these themes. Authors tend to write what they know and these themes can reflect how Brontё viewed the world around her. Charlotte Brontё uses Jane Eyre to explore 19th century feminism, sense of belonging and family, and how to keep individual morals when society does not favor those morals.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is a novel which incorporates gothic features, in an otherwise realist narrative in order to highlight certain realist issues which Jane is forced to encounter in her 'auto-biographical', bildungsroman of a nineteenth-century woman. This is done by including mystery and supernatural characteristics in her experiences in both The Reed Household's 'red room' and Thornfield Hall. Bronte's writing works in a way which allows for us to explore many of the times contemporary issues which faced the protagonist, Jane and how she begins to break them down and understand them herself, by allowing for us to view these issues through the medium of the books gothic moments. By including these, supernatural and somewhat haunting contributions from the gothic entries we are able to explore Jane's desires and passions in a more subjective manner. Her willingness to seek out the seemingly supernatural in Thornfield Hall's attic indicates to us as readers that Jane does not feel content in conforming to the usual responses found in most gothic genres, fear, but instead caters toward her own curiosity and want for excitement.

Of the various themes attributed to and found in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, many are introduced within the first chapters, providing a base to be mirrored, re-used and developed later on. As a recurring element of the Gothic genre, the supernatural and its association with the human mind are a crucial part of the novel’s atmosphere, and act as a constant ominous presence in Jane’s life, starting with her early reading materials and, more significantly, with the red room scene. Jane Eyre is also qualified as a bildungsroman, following an individual and their evolution from childhood to adulthood, and the first part of the book provide, through its description of

Gothic literature rose to fame in the late Victorian era, causing a global widespread of dark, horrific elements in writing. Gothic literature creates imagination of supernatural events and feelings of mystery and fear. In Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic novel, Jane Eyre, Jane’s character develops and perseveres past her difficult setbacks, finding her true love, Mr. Rochester, along her journey. Descriptions of Jane’s surroundings and character’s features highlight the dark, fearful feeling prominent in the novel. The Gothic elements in Jane Eyre are depicted through her experience in the red room, the setting of Thornfield Hall, and the atmosphere of ghostly mystery, thanks to the character of Bertha Mason.

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre emerges with a unique voice in the Victorian period for the work posits itself as a sentimental novel; however, it deliberately becomes unable to fulfill the genre, and then, it creates an altogether divergent novel that demonstrates its superiority by adding depth of structure in narration and character portrayal. Joan D. Peters’ essay, Finding a Voice: Towards a Woman’s Discourse of Dialogue in the Narration of Jane Eyre positions Gerard Genette’s theory of convergence, which is that the movement of the fiction towards a confluence of protagonist and narrator, is limited as the argument does not fully flesh out the parodies that Charlotte Bronte incorporates into her work. I will argue that in the novel