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Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre Nature in Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte makes use of nature imagery throughout Jane Eyre, and comments on both the human relationship with the outdoors and human nature. The Oxford Reference Dictionary defines nature as 1. the phenomena of the physical world as a whole... 2. a things essential qualities; a persons or animals innate character... 4. vital force, functions, or needs. We will see how Jane Eyre comments on all of these.
Several natural themes run through the novel, one of which is the image of a stormy sea. After Jane saves Rochester's life, she gives us the following metaphor of their relationship: Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea... I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore... now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but... a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. The gale is all the forces that prevent Janes union with Rochester.
Later, Bront, whether it intentional or not, conjures up the image of a buoyant sea when Rochester says of Jane: Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was... not buoyant. In fact, it is this buoyancy of Janes relationship with Rochester that keeps Jane afloat at her time of crisis in the heath: Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester living.
Another recurrent image is Bront s treatment of Birds. We first witness Janes fascination when she reads Bewicks History of British Birds a child. She reads of death-white realms and the solitary rocks and promontories' of sea-fowl. We quickly see how Jane identifies with their. For her it is a form of escape, the idea of flying above the toils every day life. Several times the narrator talks of feeding birds crumbs.
Perhaps Bront is telling us that this idea of escape is no moreton a fantasy one cannot escape when one must return for basic sustenance. The link between Jane and birds is strengthened by the way Bront adumbrates poor nutrition at Lowood through a bird who is described a little hungry robin. Bront brings the buoyant sea theme and the bird theme together inthe passage describing the first painting of Janes that Rochesterexamines. This painting depicts a turbulent sea with a sunken ship, and onthe mast perches a cormorant with a gold bracelet in its mouth, apparently taken from a drowning body. While the imagery is perhaps too imprecise to afford an exact interpretation, a possible explanation can be derived fromthe context of previous treatments of these themes.
The sea is surely a metaphor for Rochester and Janes relationship, as we have already seen. Rochester is often described as a dark and dangerous man, which fits the likeness of a cormorant; it is therefore likely that Bront sees him as these bird. As we shall see later, Jane goes through a sort of symbolic death, so it makes sense for her to represent the drowned corpse. The gold bracelet can be the purity and innocence of the old Jane that Rochestermanaged to capture before she left him. Having established some of the nature themes in Jane Eyre, we canon look at the natural cornerstone of the novel: the passage between her flight from Thornfield and her acceptance into Morton. In leaving Thornfield, Jane has severed all her connections; sheets cut through any umbilical cord.
She narrates: Not a tie holds me truman society at this moment. After only taking a small parcel with her from Thornfield, she leaves even that in the coach she rents. Gone are all references to Rochester, or even her past life. A sensible heroine might have gone to find her uncle, but Jane needed to leave her old life behind. Jane is seeking a return to the womb of mother nature: I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask repose. We see how she seeks protection as she searches for a resting place: I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moor side; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it.
High banks of moor were about me; therag protected my head: the sky was over that. In fact, the entire countryside around White cross is a sort of encompassing womb: abort-midland shire... ridged with mountain: this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. It is the moon, part of nature, that sends Jane away from Thornfield. Jane narrates: birds were faithful to their mates.
Seeingherself as unfaithful, Jane is seeking an existence in nature where everything is simpler. Bront was surely not aware of the large number of species of bird that practice polygamy. While this fact is intrinsically wholly irrelevant to the novel, it makes one ponder whether nature is really so simple and perfect. The concept of nature in Jane Eyre is reminiscent of Hegel's view the world: the instantiation of God.
The Lord is My Rock is a popular Christian saying. A rock implies a sense of strength, of support. Yet a rock is also cold, The rest of the paper is available free of charge to our registered users. The registration process just couldnt be easier.
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Research essay sample on Jane Is Seeking Jane Eyre
