Gateshead Flashcards
“Cold winter wind brought with it clouds so sombre, and rain so penetrating”
Pathetic Fallacy
“I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths” Techniques:
Techniques: Alliteration; Language; Allusion.
“With ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly”
Jane’s wild nature (c.f to wild animal pg 5)
“History of British Birds”
Jane referred to as a bird
Bird imagery
Birds represent freedom and release
“You rat!”
Animalistic abuse
Significance of the red room
Red - Sexual undertones
Gothic imagery
Child abuse
Cf to Bertha chapters about her confinement
Jane and Bertha’s mirroring personalities
“”Unjust! - unjust!” Said my reason”
Suggests Jane’s unjust treatment
“I began to recall what I had heard of dead men;…bending over me with strange pity”
Jane’s indescribable trauma and terror
“For herself and her children she employed a physician”
Jane’s lack of status prevents her from seeing a doctor
“She should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything”
Gothic imagery
“You thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities”
Victorian children
“Paradise of peace” “bird of paradise”
More Bird imagery
“Over the path of the poor orphan child”
Foreshadowing Jane leaving
“A more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner - something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were - she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy little children”
Whilst Jane is clearly rebellious, her punishment is often unjustly de
“I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths” Interpretation:
Whilst Jane is clearly rebellious, her punishment is often unjustly severe and creates further passion within her. She links here to Bertha Mason for the first time.
“I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths” Analysis:
The alliterative “moments mutiny” stresses how even a “moment’s” rebellion is crushed by Mrs Reed. “Mutiny” highlights Jane’s natural independence. By alluding to “rebel slave” Jane evokes ideas of unjust captivity, horrific mistreatment, and oppression of the most violent and disturbing kind. “Strange penalties” emphasises freedom Mrs Reed has to act however she wishes, without fear of being punished. As Jane feels “desperation” and goes “all lengths” we see an explicit link to Bertha Mason and her desperate actions.
