Jane Eyre Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

The red-room, once the bedroom of Jane’s Uncle Reed, was (we’re sure you remember) the chamber in which he died. Locked in the red-room, believing that her uncle’s ghost is manife...

That’s a symbol? Yep, sure is. There are two important moments when really nasty porridge figures in Jane’s life. The first is at Lowood, when Jane arrives and, along with the other gir...

The most important fires in Jane Eyre are Bertha’s two acts of arson: the first at the end of Book I (Chapter 15), when Bertha sets fire to Rochester’s bedclothes, and the second at the...

If you’ve read Frankenstein, then you know that, where there’s fire, there’s also ice! (OK, you could learn that from Robert Frost, too.) Anyway, not only does Jane take special i...

The day after Rochester proposes to Jane under "the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard," that same tree gets "struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away" (2.8.119)....

The phrase "the madwoman in the attic" is the invention of two famous feminist literary critics, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, who wrote a book with that title in 1979. (See "Brain Snacks" for mo...

Jane draws four crucial portraits over the course of the novel: one of herself, one of what she imagines Blanche Ingram will look like, one of Rochester, and one of Rosamond Oliver. The first two s...