The Image of Ice in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

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The Image of Ice in Jane Eyre

One of the most interesting aspects of the story of Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte's ability to use metaphors in order to convey Jane's feelings towards the world around her, and her feelings for it. The most frequently appearing example of this is the image of ice. This image frequently appears in Jane's thoughts and is further able to convey her feelings towards people and situations to the reader. The references to ice are often the means by which Bronte is able to fully convey to the reader the inner workings of Jane's mind. The idea of ice and coldness is usually used to represent the forces that Jane must fight in order to achieve happiness and are often found in close relationship to Jane's emotional state of loneliness and despair.

During the time that Jane spends at Gateshead there are many references to ice and coldness that aid the reader in discovering Jane's feelings towards her home and caregiver. While Jane's actions and experiences easily depict the physical and emotional isolation that she must endure, the reader is given a deeper insight to this early in the book while Jane is reading the History of British Birds. Within this book Jane takes a very distinctive notice of the arctic climate that is described within the book. Jane interprets this landscape as "death-white realms"(Bronte 2), which seem to convey a similar idea about her own feelings as she goes on to relate the barren landscape to images formed within her own head. "I formed an idea of my own...these introductory pages...gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ...

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...gs of warmth or coldness are all figurative. This shows to the reader that Jane's own personality allows her to view all of her feelings under the light of warmth as happiness and cold as a more gloomy, depressed feeling. Jane's ability to do this makes the story of Jane Eyre become something deeper, because it allows the reader to see into her soul and re-experience the events of her life and feel them, just as she felt them.

Works Cited and Consulted

Beaty, Jerome. Misreading Jane Eyre. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1996.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1991

Erickson, Donald H. "Imagery as Structure in Jane Eyre." Victorian Newsletter 30 (1966): 18-22.

Gates, Barbara Timm, ed. Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990.

Leavis, Q.D. Introduction. Jane Eyre. Middlesex: Penguin, 1966.

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