Supernatural Imagery In The Red Room

On Jane’s first meeting with Rochester, he immediately asserts his control without Jane even realising, his whole presence suggests that he has a powerful awe about him. He broke the medieval trance that Jane was in, “The man, the human being, broke the spell at once” she was expecting a Gytrash, a mystical creature that lies in wait of lonely travellers to lead them astray, a metaphor for Mr Rochester, he may not be a gytrash but he is a mystical man that attempts to lead Jane into a world of secrecy and manipulates her feelings for him.

One evening, few months after Jane’s arrival at Thornfield, Jane is alone at Hay Lane gazing at the moonrise when she notices a horse approaching. Jane appears to think is a mystical creature, a ‘Gytrash.’ Jane’s hope soon fades when she discovers the Gytrash is a façade, the creature in question is just an ordinary human traveler; ‘the man, the human being broke the spell at once’ this shows us disappointment in Jane’s voice, the reference to ‘Gytrash’ and ‘Spell’ casts a eerie and supernatural setting., this theme was first introduced and inspired by the Red Room. The injured man- who we later discover is Edward Rochester- accuses a startled Jane of bewitching his horse and then abruptly calls her an elf; here Rochester is said to ‘think uncommonly of fairytales’.’ This meeting between the two is of vital importance and signifies the pair’s likeliness, and the similarities to each of their odd and kooky personas. Jane then unconventionally insists on helping an injured Rochester Jane helps Rochester rise to his feet and introduces herself to him. She describes his features as having a ’dark face, stern features, and a heavy brow.’

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses many types of imagery to provide understanding of the characters and also to express reoccurring themes in the novel. Through bird imagery specifically, we are able to see Jane develop from a small, unhappy child into a mature and satisfied young woman. "The familiarity and transcendence of birds have given them a wider range of meaning and symbol in literature than any other animal. The resemblance of their activities to common patterns of human behavior makes them exceptionally suitable for anthropomorphic imagery that links man to the common forms of nature" (Lutwack xii). Through the use of birds such as doves and sparrows Bronte enables the audience to gain insight into the type of person that Jane

Hence, Bronte used bird imagery to imitate human behaviour and feelings, allowing a connection between emotions and nature; she also used Birds to describe Jane’s progression over time. However, in contrast the images Jane looks at are not of pretty birds, but bleak shorelines. Jane is like a bird, she longs to fly away, but she is not beautiful she is plain and bleak, and feels trapped like a caged bird.

The Red Room’ written by H.G.Wells is a short story that breaks from his usual science fiction by choosing a gothic horror for this epical short story.

Helen’s life was influential to Jane’s life because she taught her so much, but Helen’s death was more important, because it burdened Jane with carrying on Helen’s legacy. Helen was the first person Jane has cared for in a positive way. She idolizes Helen, arguably as a mother or sister figure, and her death leaves an emptiness in Jane’s life. Although she never announces that she will carry the lessons Helen taught her, Jane’s actions demonstrate the importance and the hold that these lessons have on her life. Most notably, before her death from consumption, Helen tells Jane to study the New Testament and follow Jesus’s notion to “Love your enemies” (Bronte #). When Jane is summoned back to Gateshead, where her aunt is dying, she displays this doctrine in its fullest. Mrs. Reed was one of Jane’s most antagonizing enemies. She banishes Jane to the “red room” and says she may not be let out until Mrs. Reed came to get her herself. When Jane cries out in terror of seeing a ghost, Mrs. Reed “thrust [her] back and locked [her] in”

just enter Janes mind at this moment in time, it is meant to draw the

Jane’s uncle’s dying wish was that his wife raise Jane. As a young child she was harassed by her cousin John Reed who would always be aided by his mom. While locked in the “haunted” red room, Jane believes that she sees the ghost of her uncle who sought to protect her. Jane is forced to grow up without love from her family. In contrast, Stephen is raised in a loving home in Ireland. Whereas religion does not play an

Reed. One of the punishments Jane remembers most vividly is her internment in the isolated and abandoned red-room, formerly belonging to Jane's deceased uncle. Jane is forced to inhabit the Red Room on her own while she is in a state of pain and fury, and her own abandonment inside the bedroom reflects the state of the room itself. After Jane is locked in the terrifying room that is believed to hold the soul of Mr.Reed, she becomes scared of these irrational thoughts of what could happened and she believed that he was here to punish Mrs.Reed for not fulfilling his death wish for her to take care of Jane. Jane begins to feel dizzy and fell asleep on the bed.

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

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

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

In order to fully understand how Bertha Mason qualifies as Jane’s “dark double” in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, we must examine Jane and her relationship to the Red Room, a place that frequently haunted her as a child as it was where her uncle died. Jane’s worst nightmare came true when she was locked in the Red Room by Mrs. Reed as punishment for striking John. At the time, Jane was in a state of panic as she felt “oppressed… suffocated” while involuntary held in the room and fearful that “Mr. Reed’s spirit… might quit its abode… and rise before [her]” (Bronte 13). The Red Room is where Jane realizes the extent of her isolation, both as an orphan and more importantly as a rebellious young woman of a restless nature, a personality unwelcome in Victorian society (Bronte 15). As a consequence of her episode, Jane begins to dial back her rebellious nature so as to protect herself from the

    Charlotte Bronte wrote the novel Jane Eyre in the mid-eighteen hundreds. In her novel she expresses her views on many important factors present during this time including social problems such as race, class, gender, and the role of religion. Each of these factors affects the way that the protagonist, Jane Eyre, grows as a person. Throughout the novel Charlotte Bronte uses images and symbols that either influence or represent Jane's growth. Bronte uses a common imagery throughout the novel reflecting images of "fire and ice." She also uses symbols in Jane's life such as the red-room, from her childhood, and the character Bertha Mason Rochester, during her time at Thornfield. Other characters who

Bronte has purposefully rejected the idea of a conventionally beautiful heroine; she told siblings ‘I will show you a heroine as plain and small as myself’. As a reader we have more respect for Jane because of these virtues, she has more emotion and does not appear placid. She questions everything, which is unfortunate at Gateshead as Mrs Reed doesn’t ‘like cavillers or questioners…there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.’ Jane is shown to possess a strong and rich inner life, but we notice also how much she internalises and, when attacked, retreats and finds solace in solitude, in the world of art, and in contact with nature.