Tuesday, April 1, 2014

What is a passage from Jane Eyre that means more than it says? Does it have figurative language?

Well, I think the "means more than it says" part applies to most of the book. Part of what makes Jane Eyre so interesting is how Jane develops as a character over time, and how the reader's understanding of that is different than the story we get from the first person narrator. Take, for example, one of Jane's first interviews with Rochester:



“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?”


I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware— “No, sir.”



What the passage "says" is that Jane has replied rudely to her employer, but what it means is a little different. Rochester is, in fact, flirting with her; Jane, for her part, "says" that her answer "somehow slipped" out, but in fact she is simply repaying Rochester in kind. That is, Rochester knows he is flirting, and Jane, whatever she might say, knows that Rochester knows he is flirting. Her response means several things:


  1. it is the truth -- Rochester is not handsome

  2. it is sarcastic -- it is Jane's way of letting Rochester know she will not flatter him

  3. it is defiant -- Jane, by saying it, is declaring her independence of mind.

So, the actual truth behind this interchange is much more complicated than it would seem. The fact that they both understand this unspoken subtext is nothing less than a tacit agreement between them. It is as if they are saying to each other, "I understand you" -- which is of course the secret place where their love begins.


The second half of your question, about figurative language, doesn't apply so much to that example. Bronte, however, does use figurative language extensively to describe the inner state of her characters. When Jane resolves to leave Rochester, in her last night at Thornfield, she sees the moon:



She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart—


“My daughter, flee temptation."


"Mother, I will."



This is an example of personification -- the moon is made into a human form, "speaking to Jane's spirit." But the point behind the personification is to show Jane's inner state -- she is utterly alone, and the moon figure here is a symbolic way of showing that although Jane may lack human company, she still has someone to guide her -- her missing mother. The passage also suggests something about the nature of Jane's faith, which is the source of her moral strength.

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