Jane’s perception of the furniture’s authoritative presence and her reaction to the looking-glass expresses her over active imagination, which stems from her psychologic need to distance herself from her cruel life when she finds herself isolated. Ostracized by the Reed family, similarly to the “seldom entered” Red Room, Jane finds comfort in novels and stories her nurse, Bessie, tells to her. Locked away in the Red Room as an unfair punishment, Jane’s overactive imagination transforms things like the bed and chair around her into a “tabernacle” and “pale throne” (10) so she can better cope with the strange surroundings. Reflexively, Jane uses her imagination as a shield against her Aunt’s unjust cruelty and bias towards her; instead focusing
She becomes consumed by the wallpaper in the room and reflects her confinement onto a woman that she thinks is trapped in the wallpaper. When she frees the woman, she feels like she is freed too, when in reality she has just hit rock bottom. The story is also set in a time where women were frequently oppressed by men, as shown by Jane who is constantly belittled by her husband.
She feels Jane was forced upon her family after the death of her parents. Against her husband’s request, Mrs. Reed does not treat Jane like a human being and is constantly criticizing and punishing her. In one example, Jane was keeping to herself and reading a book when her cousin John Reed decided to annoy her. John grabbed the book and threw it at her, knocking her down and cutting her on the head. This caused her to bleed and was very painful. Mrs. Reed then punished Jane by sending her into the red room, the room that her uncle died in, for the entire night. While in the red room, Jane became terrified and thought she saw or heard the flapping of wings. The treatment Jane received caused her to become bitter and to truly dislike Mrs. Reed.
Response: I feel that Jane needs to live up to her own words of being equal to others even in beauty. She shouldn’t think so little of who she is or what she looks like.
Although Bertha’s seclusion is a result of her insanity and unacceptable behaviour, Jane’s isolation seems to be the cause of some mental illness, throwing her into a panic attack in the red room where she believes her Uncle Reed’s ghost dwells. It must be noted, though, that Jane is a child at this point in the novel, with an active imagination. Bronte may be making a point then, that children should not be shunned for their inventiveness and imagination, as was so common in her day. However, there is a fine line, and socially acceptable age, that separates a healthy imagination from madness. There is a clear lack of this knowledge in Bertha, whom does not appear to have a firm grip on reality. Madness, however, does not merely deal with concepts of reality in “Jane Eyre.” Jane has bouts of uncontrollable speech, in which she must say what comes to her mind. Jane first loses control of her tongue in chapter IV, in which she accuses Mrs. Reed of wishing her dead, and later exclaims “I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare, I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed,” and goes on to evaluate the terrible treatment Mrs. Reed has given her, and the lack of love and compassion she has been shown while at Gateshead. In this instance, madness works in Jane’s favour. This temporary bout of mania allows Jane to finally express the
We first see Jane; vulnerable and lonely at Gateshead, where the orphaned little girl resides with her bitter widowed aunt and her children. Jane is sent to the ‘Red Room’ for retaliating when her
Despite her numerous accounts on trying to renovate or even switch rooms, her husband declines her requests and begins to questions her wellbeing further. Some critics have come to the conclusion that the surroundings of Jane, which include the barred windows, the fixed bed, and the metal rings mounted to the walls, contribute to the “the prison-like nature of the house to which she is confined” (the yellow wallpaper). These aspects of her room aren’t the only contributions to her oppression. Her husband’s restrictions continue to worsen, in turn worsening Jane to the point of
Jane endured a harsh life in the home of her guardian, her cruel aunt Mrs. Reed. One of the punishments that Jane remembers immensely is her internment in the isolated and abandoned red-room, formerly belonging to Jane’s deceased uncle. Jane is forced to inhabit the chamber on her own while she is in a state of pain and fury. As the night begins to fall, the red-room begins to have an effect on Jane as the lonesome aspect of the room and its supernatural qualities begin to take their toll on Jane’s imagination. Jane begin to recall on the red-room, “I had heard what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr.
Jane is sent to the “Red Room” and reflects on the course of events leading her here. After this she thinks her uncle’s ghost is in the room and faints.
Jane has visions and day dreams since she was a child. The ‘Red Room’ is the place where Jane starts having visions, she has one of a strange figure when she had been locked in the red room by her Aunt Reed; “…the strange
Reed, her cruel aunt. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. One day,she was fighting with her cousin John Reed, and as punishment Jane’s aunt sent Jane to the red-room, the room in which Jane’s Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, sees her uncle’s ghost, screams and faints.
Despite John Reed’s cruel, brutish behaviour towards Jane; ‘you are a dependant… you ought to beg’, Jane’s innately fierce nature is not crushed, it merely lies in wait, cloaked by her ‘habitual obedience’, until it is gradually revealed as she fights back against Mrs Reed’s tyranny. When being forced into the Red Room, as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Jane tells the reader that ‘I resisted all the way: a new thing for me’, it is arguably the first break in the traditional mould for a female heroine, as he does not, and increasingly will not, fit the female roles conventionally assigned to a woman in her position in society. When Mrs Reed cruelly asserts to John Reed that Jane is “not worthy of notice… neither you or your sister should associate with her”, Jane’s reaction is not orthodoxly submissive, but instinctively and immediately reactive. To defend herself she vehemently states “I cried out suddenly and without at all deliberating on my words ‘they are not fit to associate with me!’”. Jane’s confidence and quick wit, moves her further away from conventionality and submission, and fuels her independent, morally virtuous personality. Later, when Mrs Reed denounces Jane’s character to her future headmaster ‘the cold marble pillar’, Mr Brocklehurst, Jane again, passionately discards the expectations placed upon her, and informs the reader, “speak I must: I had been
Jane’s restlessness shapes her character to the extent of her voice being suppressed by society and her desire of change, an empty void then filled once her voice is found. While living with the Reeds and after throwing a book at John Reed, Jane gets locked up in the red-room, serving as a punishment for standing up for herself. The room derives her from being expressive and creates an image of imprisonment for being radically passionate when she should not be according to the consensus of Gateshead, the head or fount of all her problems.
Jane Eyre is the typical little girl, except she has one special circumstance: she’s an orphan. Living under the roof of her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her three cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana, Jane is often mistreated. One day, at Gateshead, the name of her residence, John Reed punishes her by throwing a book at her and hitting her head. Jane yells at him, and tells him how wicked and cruel he is (Bronte 15). Mrs. Reed comes in and disciplines her for acting out by sending her to the red room, the room where her uncle died. After spending a while in the red room Jane starts feeling like the ghost of Mr. Reed has returned to seek avenge of his unfulfilled last wish. She begins to scream to be let out, but the servants refuse, and Mrs. Reed states
“I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, might quit its abode — whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed — and rise before me in this chamber . . . My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated; endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort." The red room incident symbolizes how she is trapped due to her social class, gender, and mistreated as child. The room itself can be seen as an emotional prison for Jane. Always being treated as she was less then she felt as though her feelings didn't matter. Not only does the red room symbolize death, being that her uncle passed away in that very room, but it can also symbolize the effect it had upon Jane, bringing out a strong quiet strength that helps guide her through
Jane, who is locked up in the red room, ponders about the reason why she has to go through this hardship. While thinking about her situation and what she had done, she evaluates herself objectively on how she lacks flattery or not being audacious enough as a passenger in the family. Locked up in the redroom, young Jane shows the weak side of her as she blames herself because of insecurity and suppression caused by fear. “Submission” and “obedience” were the attributes that the 19th century society forced on women, and Jane too was required to be like that.