Use of Language in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Use of Language in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Look closely at the passage in volume 1, chapter 7, where Mr

Brocklehurst visits Lowood, from ‘One afternoon (I had been three weeks at Lowood)…’ to ‘… the inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined.’

Write an essay examining how language is used in this passage to convey and contrast the attitudes of Brocklehurst, Miss Temple, Jane and the other girls, and briefly relating this scene to the novel as a whole. This essay will examine the differences in language used by the first person narrator, Jane, Brocklehurst and Miss Temple in the aforementioned extract. How this extract relates to the rest of the novel and the themes introduced in this extract will also be discussed. Charlotte Brontë uses first person narration, focalising through the character of Jane Eyre. This provides us with a reliable but narrow perspective, as it is only Jane’s viewpoints we see and hear. Jane, as the first person narrator, is horrified to see Brocklehurst arrive at the school. She uses a number of metaphors describing Brocklehurst as a ‘black column’, a ‘piece of architecture’. To her, he is an unfeeling, inanimate object. She is waiting in fearful anticipation of Brocklehurst telling Miss Temple how evil Jane is. This anticipation is portrayed by the short phrases used by the author as

Jane’s fear increases: ‘He stood at Miss Temple’s side; he was speaking low in her ear’. Jane often includes French phrases such as

‘en masse’ which helps to demonstrate her level of intelligence. She also often makes allusions to the Bible such as her reference to the

‘cup and platter’ (Luke 11:37-54), indicating her feelings that although Brocklehurst may be able to change the girls’ outward appea... ... middle of paper ...

...s through Brontë’s choice of language that the different attitudes of the characters are conveyed and contrasted. As discussed, this extract introduces many themes that are developed throughout the novel, particularly that of Jane’s self-development. Many of the themes can also be considered as statements regarding the social and moral conditions of Victorian

England.

Bibliography

Brontë, Charlotte. [1847] 2000 Jane Eyre, ed. by Margaret Smith, with an introduction and revised notes by Sally Shuttleworth, Oxford

World’s Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Regan, Stephen. Ed. 2001. The Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical

Reader, London: Routledge

Da Sousa Correa, Delia. Ed. 2000 The Nineteenth-Century Novel:

Realisms, London: Routledge

ClassicNotes by GradeSaver. GradeSaver.com. [Accessed 12 January 2004]

http://www.gradesaver.com/classic/ClassicNotes.html.