Language in Jane Eyre-chapter 26

Having read ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte, I am able to analyse the last few paragraphs of chapter 26.

Jane starts with the line ‘I heard him go’. Jane has found out that Mr Rochester is still married and her wedding has been cancelled. All her hopes and dreams at this point have been destroyed and she did not want to be just a mistress or a little part in Mr Rochester’s life. ‘I shut myself in’-here, Charlotte Bronte explains that Jane at this point is alienated and is hiding from everyone and everything. Charlotte Bronte describes Jane as being ‘withdrawn’, this is very important because at this point Jane is impassive, feels very isolated and frozen. Jane is confused and needs to be alone at this moment to take time to think and summarise all that happened.

Jane gives the reader an insight into her thoughts ‘but now I thought’ –this is the moment where Jane actually realises that there is a problem in her life. The italics prove that only ‘now ’ she knows and understands the way she feels.

In the following sentences Jane recapitulates on the whole situation she is in.

Throughout the novel, Jane Eyre

has been filled with hope and expectancy, but now, as Charlotte Bronte describes, she is a ‘cold, solitary girl again’. Obviously ‘cold’ represents a winter, emotionless and frozen mood, very negative phrase. This is indicative of how she feels inside. ‘Solitary’ also reflects that she is ‘again’ lonely. As we know at the start of the novel she was bullied by John Reed-a schoolboy of fourteen years old, the son of Mrs Reed-‘he bullied and punished me’. This proves that Jane has been emotionally and physically hurt. Jane experiences an epiphany in that, it suddenly hit her that her life is not perfect-she is naïve, vulnerable and maybe insecure.

Looking deeper into Jane’s feelings, I have noticed how Charlotte Bronte very poetically wrote about Jane, ‘ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses’. I think that this sentence represents that although Jane is hurt, the reader can look into the fact that the apple is only “glazed”, there is hope yet, the problem is only minor. Moreover, the ‘ripe apples’ represent Jane herself, it is like a metaphor. The fact that it’s ‘ripe’, suggests that her future is bright, as it happens at the end of the novel. The ‘blowing roses’ also represent Jane- she has been ‘crushed�

Some topics in this essay:
Charlotte Bronte, John Reed-a, Jane Eyre, charlotte bronte, Language Chapter, ‘the waters, storm whirled june’, charlotte bronte describes, ‘the waters soul’, december storm whirled, whirled june’, storm whirled, december storm, jane eyre, represents jane, bronte describes, waters soul’, moment jane,