In her novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte establishes the reader with a first-hand account of a woman’s triumph over hardships. The character of Jane Eyre is passionate and hungry for equality as an individual. She does, however, lack the most superficial yet very necessary qualities of femininity. Jane is frank and sincere but lacks in personal vanity. Bronte describes Jane as “small and plain and Quaker-like.” Jane Eyre is a young woman who is completely unprotected by social position. She has no family and is without power or independent wealth. What she lacks in femininity she makes up for with passion and appetite. Throughout the novel, Jane faces many hardships that test her integrity and spirit. In the opening scenes with her aunt, for example Jane shows her true feelings:

“People think you a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. You are deceitful!”

and “I am glad you are no relative of mine; I will never call you aunt again so long

as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me

how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say that the very thought of you

Throughout Jane Eyre, images help Bronte portray Jane’s passion as wicked. It is that very passion that creates her vivid and commanding personality. Vivid metaphors are used to portray Jane’s strong and volatile emotional nature, as Jane comments after the incident of John’s attacking her with a book, “my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigor.” (13) Bronte enlists the reader in using their senses. For instance, fire and burning is used very strongly in the novel. It is used to portray Jane’s deep and conflicting emotions from her childhood to adulthood. Both Jane and Rochester are repeatedly involved with fire throughout the novel. Fire is used both metaphorically in references to “fiery” passion or in the case of the actual burning of Rochester’s bedroom or Bertha’s setting Thornfield on fire. The fire scenes in the novel are excellent and very realistic.

Jane Eyre is not merely a parable or morality tale. Jane’s success as a heroine depends greatly on satisfying her emotional and spiritual needs, in addition to securing the safe domestic environment during the Victorian time period for female survival. Her female rebelliousness causes her to resist the terms of her “destiny” and leads her to eventual happy ending. The no

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