Gothic Romance Symbols and Themes in Bronte's Jane Eyre

What Jane Eyre Does for Me

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, has a unique ability to engage me and evoke strong thoughts and emotions largely thanks to its depiction of complex characters, themes and symbols. Jane Eyre is a very large and long story—so there is room in it for the author to explore reality on various levels. We see Jane as a young girl and what it is like to go through the sort of trials she has to experience being essentially an orphan without a loving mother or family. We see her at her boarding school, and then as she grows up and has to learn to fend for herself as a tutor at Mr. Rochester’s house. It is a story that plays with genre (gothic romance), mystery (who or what is in the attic and why is Mr. Rochester so strange), and the coming-of-age drama (we see Jane mature into a real woman). It is also an intense love story as well, with a morality to it that is understandable and sincere. There is, on top of all this, a God angle that brings all this earthly drama into focus by touching on the divine commandments and principles that should inform a Christian society.

Plus, there is the fact that Jane feels and thinks and speaks like a real woman. For instance, we hear her say what most likely every intelligent young woman of that day and age thought: “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and It is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” This is a great line that shows how human Jane is—how complex and thoughtful; it shows how critical the author is of society at the time as well. This is something that fairy stories by their simple nature and design cannot do. They cannot explore well the complexities of the human character or the drama of real life in a realistic way. Jane Eyre does explore human character and human life in a day to day realstic setting.

Movies and TV shows also fail to measure up to a book like Jane Eyre. Movies and TV shows often have superficial story lines and plots, flimsy characters, unbelievable settings or action—and everything is usually built around some ridiculous story. They are very rarely interesting and draw one in for long. But a good book like Jane Eyre can keep you interested from chapter to chapter because it goes deep into what life is like. It is full of insight and compassion, eloquence, and heartache: Jane, for example, is torn between loving Rochester (who is married already) and being at peace with God by refusing to violate His law. She says, “I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.” She knows who she is and what is capable of doing—and we know that too because we have seen her survive the horror of her boarding school, and we have seen her have a friend teach her about faith and Christian love. That has meant something to her, and it means something to the reader to feel everything alongside her in real time as it is happening to her. Plus, one gets to go at one’s own pace—not like a TV show or movie, which moves along whether you are paying attention or not. One has to be engaged with the novel if one wants to get anything out of it. Then there are the excellent symbols that get one thinking on another level—such as the recurring image of fire, which symbolizes passion and desire, while the imagery of nature tends to represent freedom and escape from societal constraints. These symbols help to create the tension in the novel from one chapter to the next. It is beautifully done and a testament to the power of the novel that Bronte is able to do it so well.