State of Mind of Jane Eyre in Chapter 2

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‘I was a discord in Gateshead Hall’. The story of Jane Eyre tells of how a young girl struggles against the rigid social hierarchy to become an independent example of how a single person can change people’s views. In the Victorian era, when the novel was set, the rights of married women were similar to those of children: they could not vote, sue, or own property.

Their role was to have children and tend to the house, and the only acceptable job a woman could have was a teacher or a domestic servant.

In the end, they were to be treated as saints, but saints that had no legal rights. As a child, Jane lives with her aunt and cousins at Gateshead Hall, where she feels mistreated and that she had ‘nothing in harmony’ with the family.

She uses an extended musical metaphor of ‘discord’ and ‘nothing in harmony’ to show that she feels incongruous. Jane’s state of mind changes dramatically throughout chapter 2 of ‘Jane Eyre’. Bronte uses a number of techniques to show this, including a narrative voice, imagery and symbolism, mood and atmosphere and the language.

Jane progresses through five main mentalities: passionate rebellion, anger, self-doubtful depression, fearful isolation and hysteria. With each state of mind introducing individual techniques, the distinction between them is evident. The chapter begins with Jane being restrained and forced into the Red Room, a room of diverse emotions, by the house maids, for fighting with her cousin.

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The symbolism and superstition, associated with that chamber in particular, overwhelms her, and the chapter concludes when Jane unnerves herself to the extent that she finally faints.

The first apparent state of mind is rebellion and passion. We can tell this because Jane describes herself as a ‘rebel slave’. The use of the word ‘rebel’ suggests that she’s not going to accept the way she is being treated. She is strong and determined to fight back against the Reed’s, but also society itself for placing her at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. The 19th century didn’t hold much of a place for women, but Jane wasn’t satisfied with that, as she struggles against her aunt’s nepotism, purely because of her orphan and impoverished status, and therefore, her class.

This could be a reflection of Bronte herself, as when she first wrote ‘Jane Eyre’ she adopted a male pseudonym in order for her work to be publicly respected, which it was. Jane also uses the word ‘slave’. This implies that she feels used and oppressed by the inability to express herself without being punished unjustly. Comparing herself to history shows that she feels the world hasn’t changed or developed, and the process of age hasn’t fallen on the Reed household. This also uses hyperbole to create Jane’s point effectively and exaggerates to establish sympathy for the character early on in the novel.

Her passion is also indicated by the shade of the room she is forced into. Bronte used pathetic fallacy to colour the room red because red can symbolise positive and negative emotion, creating the confusion that Jane feels at the beginning of the chapter. It could also act as a warning to what Jane may face whilst locked in the room. The subsequent mentality is anger. The use of the simile ‘a dark deposit in a turbid well’ describing her infuriated thoughts of the others’ injustice compared to her own, presents images that seem out of place in a 10 year old child’s mind; dirty and ugly.

The use of the word ‘deposit’ suggests that the thoughts are unwanted and uncomfortable. The rule of three is also used when Jane questions the way she is treated in comparison with the other members of the family. The red colouring of the room can symbolise the intense fury and violent passion that Jane feels inside. Longer sentence structures and punctuation are used, as a rapid rush of thoughts enter Jane’s head at the same moment. Both of these techniques create melodrama, so the reader feels empathetic for Jane as the protagonist, and wants to follow her through her story.

My blood was still warm’ gives the impression that her blood had boiled, a saying to describe the feeling of ire, and was still warm: she hadn’t forgotten the mistreatment she had received. It could also be taken to mean that her spirit wasn’t dead yet and she was still alive. The proceeding state of mind is self-doubt and depression. The switch between anger and self-doubt is surprisingly sudden as Jane starts a sentence with ‘”Unjust! – unjust! “‘, the punctuation marks presenting the passion, and concludes by considering starving herself to death as she says ‘… etting myself die’.

The suicidal contemplation is exaggeration of her state of mind of depression. She talks of ‘escape’, showing she wants to be free, like from a prison, because she feels suppressed. The element of self-doubt is evident simultaneously. She begins to perceive herself as the ‘naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaky’ child she is constantly told that she is. Her reflection in a mirror she describes as ‘half fairy, half imp’. Whilst the fairy is the innocent personality she thought she was, the imp represents the mischievous disposition she now believes she has acquired.

Jane collaborates this theory herself, as she says ‘All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so’. The older Jane, narrating the story, shows a mature perspective as she tries to understand her childhood from her aunt’s point of view. She says ‘It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group’.

The use of the words, ‘strange’ and ‘alien’ show that she didn’t feel she belonged in their household and she didn’t fit in. The word ‘intruding’ suggests that she felt uninvited and unwelcome. Speaking of her aunt, Jane uses the phrase ‘her own family’, demonstrating Jane’s lack of love or loyalty to the Reed’s, and her separation from them. This seems to illustrate her depression in her childhood, but only makes Jane a stronger and more determined person in her adulthood.

The penultimate frame of mind Jane undergoes is fear and isolation. Anxiety, although heightened nearer to the end of the chapter, was present from the point at which Bessie and Miss Abbot left her in the Red Room. She says ‘They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them’. This action symbolises Jane’s exclusion and rejection and promotes the isolation, which leads to fear. After thinking about how Mrs Reed has treated her, she then goes on to imagine how her uncle would have wanted her to be treated if he were alive.

This unnerves Jane as she believes that his spirit will come to ‘punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed’. Dealing with the situation she says ‘I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me’. Her imagination is getting the better of her and she begins to scare herself with what she has heard and read about ‘dead men, troubled in their graves’. Jane views her surroundings slightly differently now, as she says that the spirits may ‘elicit from the gloom’.

Whereas previously the Red Room had been filled with passion and anger, as the day’s light has subdued, so has Jane’s fury, and she now sees the room as full of pessimism and gloom. The final evident state of mind which Jane experiences is hysteria. Within this mentality, the punctuation is used to portray her emotional flurry, with many colons and semi-colons used. It shows that a lot is going through her mind, and she begins to think irrationally, as she says ‘I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world’.

Logically thinking, Jane says that she now realises that the light probably came from someone carrying a lantern across the lawn. ‘My heart beat thick, my head grew hot’ is describing the effects that hysteria had on Jane. Her heart beating thick means that her pulse was rapid because she breathing faster. Like when she was exceptionally angry, she is hot again because extreme emotion is involved in her thoughts. When Jane cries out because she is scared, and the door to the room is opened, her aunt ordered for her to be placed back into the room.

To this, Jane replies ‘”O aunt! ave pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it”‘. She begs her aunt, which is the final form of desperation. Usually being quite a strong person, this is reasonably out of character as she asks for forgiveness for her behaviour which was possibly unintentionally hateful to begin with. The finale of the chapter present itself when Jane frightens herself to the extent at which, she faints. This shows Jane’s vulnerability because she had such a dramatic effect to her own imagination. In conclusion, Bronte uses many techniques to convey Jane Eyre’s state of mind during the chapter.

The switches between the moods are often sudden, but the language, punctuation and sentence structures define the end of one and beginning of another. The use of symbolism and imagery allows the reader to experience events with the character in order to be portrayed Jane’s mentality more easily. Vivid descriptions of her surroundings create atmosphere and use pathetic fallacy to show Jane’s thoughts and feelings. Through this, the reader can perceive that Jane is host to a complexity of emotions, introducing realism to the narrative, and therefore bonding character with reader.