Jane Eyre by Charlotte

203 ‘the window-curtain half hides me’ – Included in the quotation above, but worthy of mention separately, as this image reinforces the sense of Jane’s isolation and separation from Rochester’s love and the society of which he – apparently – forms a part.

203 ‘I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking, — a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony:’ – Jane’s infatuation effectively expressed through repeated and rhythmic alliteration. The p sounds, along with the image of a ‘steely point’ remind the reader that Jane is ‘netting’ with a pair of needles as she views Rochester.

204 ‘an influence that quite mastered me, — that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his.’ – For all the book’s feminist overtones, there is a strong sense that Jane responds positively to being dominated and ‘fettered’ to her master by her emotions. She will have to break these bonds eventually when she is forced to flee from Thornfield.

204 ‘I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him’ – The idea of an inexplicable, almost supernatural, bond between two lovers who somehow share the same mind and heart is one much developed by the Brontës. Indeed, it could possibly be claimed that, between them, they invented this fundamental tenet of romantic fiction, though there are precedents as far back as the poetry of the Elizabethan period. The other great literary example of this fictional phenomenon is, of course the love of Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw. To deny her feelings, would be, for Jane, a ‘Blasphemy against nature’ as she says.

204-5 ‘The ladies…have become lively as larks’ – Brontë emphasises the superficiality of the situation by her repeated use of bird imagery. Earlier, the ladies have been described as ‘a flock of white plumy birds’ (page 200), and in a few lines Amy Eshton ‘chatters like a wren.’

205 ‘I feared – or should I say hoped?’ – The moment Blanche introduces Jane as a subject of her conversation with Rochester the dream is broken and past tense narration resumes.

205 ‘half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi’ – The unkind treatment of governesses by society families was a major theme of Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey , which was written a little before Jane Eyre . An ‘incubus’ is a pretentious word for a nightmare, though it perhaps preserves its original sense here of a demon feeding sexually off its victims – in which case it is a particularly vicious term to use, particularly as Jane is within earshot.