Jane Eyre by Charlotte

201 ‘They were all three of the loftiest stature of woman’ – Jane is rather small, of course.

201 ‘the chin was sustained…in a position of almost preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s’ – It is important that the reader has already learnt that the ‘Dowager Mrs Ingram’ is, in fact, relatively poor. Brontë may well be hinting that this is the reason for her, quite comical, haughtiness. Mrs Reed, too, it is discovered much later in the novel, is only moderately wealthy and Georgiana is not considered a ‘good match’ in high society because of this. The main point, however, behind the comparison with Mrs Reed is to further emphasise the fact that Jane is being forced to repeat her infant trauma of isolation.

202 ‘I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance’ – Brontë cleverly uses a Victorian expression classified as colloquial or slang by the OED – indeed she draws attention to the somewhat coarse nature of the word, which means ‘to befool’ or ‘quiz’ (OED). Her point is that, for all their hauteur, the Ingrams – Blanche in particular – actually behave in rather a vulgar manner.

203 ‘At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in the shade — if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come.’ – The use of present tense narration is quite unusual in this period. Jane Eyre had an obvious influence on Charles Dickens, and it is perhaps no coincidence that he uses the device constantly in Bleak House , composed shortly after he read Brontë’s novel. Perhaps the most famous use of the present tense to describe a ‘magical’, slightly unreal gathering of people at a party is found in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby , and there is a similar irony of tone there. Jane is transported, briefly, back into her fantasy world by the advent of Rochester, unseen by her for some days; there is also a strong sense that this is a performance (‘Again the arch yawns; they come’), just as much as is the performance of the charades which will shortly follow. Brontë’s use of present tense is delayed until both sexes are present: at that moment, the gentlemen begin to perform for the benefit of the ladies, and the ladies, of course, do the same for the gentlemen.