Almost as quickly as lightning can strike a tree and illuminate the world from its darkness, the calm presence of the sun can extinguish the unrest. Up until this point in Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë suggests that the overarching conflict of fire and ice can never truly be resolved through the oscillation of Jane’s fiery nature at Gateshead, to an icy nature at Lowood, to fiery again at Thornfield. After running away from Thornfield and finding shelter with the Rivers at Moor House, Jane begins to teach at the local all-girls village-school in Morton. By crafting contrasting moods from day to night while at the village-school, Brontë highlights Jane’s inner battle between logic and passion. Brontë begins the passage by using language associated …show more content…
The motif, “reader,” identifies Jane’s inner feelings that she longs for some companionship, someone to sympathize with, even during this time of supposed happiness. Previously, at Thornfield, Jane rarely addressed the reader since she was happily occupied with Mr. Rochester, Adele, or Mrs. Fairfax;. However, when she did, it was when she was feeling lonely and confused, and so her reflex actions were not always what she truly wanted, as the events unfolded so did Jane’s true feelings. Now she has no one to talk or to guide her except for God, so she looks to the “reader” for conversation. This foreshadows that Jane is unhappy at Moor house, even though she outwardly appears satisfied. Continuing with the transition, the em dash in “contentedly alone – I used” serves to indicate the incoming major shift as the paragraph progresses from fluid word phrases to short choppy sentences. The fluidity indicates the calm and content tone during the day, while the briefness presents the turbulent and passionate tone in the hours that …show more content…
The imagery of a storm in Jane’s dreams depicts a state of confusion: “strange dreams at night: dreams many colored, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy.” The storm indicates a misunderstanding between what she thinks she wants and what she truly wants. Through her dreams, where she continues to meet Mr. Rochester, Brontë insinuates that Jane still deeply adores Mr. Rochester as well as the adventure and excitement she feels when with him. Further highlighting Jane’s inability to resist her love for Mr. Rochester, Brontë’s use of parallel verb structure in “sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eyes, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him” serves to convey Jane’s breathlessness and her fiery fervency. Simply put, Jane longs to be with him and the inverted sentence order in “loving him, being loved by him” stresses the importance of the idea that Mr. Rochester loves her back. In the Victorian Era, it was not common for the male spouse to their affection, therefore, this quote reiterates how much Mr. Rochester actually loves Jane and how unusual that was for the time period. Given that Jane exemplifies an independent woman who believes in her abilities, it further reinforces to the reader that although Jane