Red Room Scenes

This sample essay on Why Is Jane Afraid Of The Red Room reveals arguments and important aspects of this topic. Read this essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion below.

Jane Eyre’s parents died when she was very young and she was sent to live with her aunt Mrs Reed and her children at Gateshead Hall. Mrs Reed and her children treated Jane very cruelly and she was very unhappy. In chapters one and two, Charlotte Bronte describes Jane’s misery and fear in much detail for example, ‘He bullied me and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrank when he came near,’ This shows how terrified Jane was of John, Mrs Reeds son, this quote also makes you feel sorry for Jane.

There are many occasions mentioned in the text in which Mrs Reed and her children bully Jane, For example, before Jane was sent to the red room, John saw Jane reading books and started insulting Jane by saying ‘You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg’.

John then told Jane to stand by the door and he threw a book at her head, causing her much pain and causing her head to bleed.

Then Charlotte Bronte describes Jane’s feelings towards what had happened by saying ‘My terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded’ this shows how Jane was so upset, she was beyond terror and fear.

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Then, as if John had gone too far, Jane just spoke her feelings out by saying ‘wicked and cruel boy’ ‘you are like a murderer- you are like a slave driver- you are like the Roman emperors’. Usually Jane wouldn’t say anything back to John because she had become ‘accustomed to John Reed’s abuse,’this shows that John does it so often, Jane is used to it.

Red Room Scenes

John then hurt Jane again. Eliza and Georgina, Johns sisters, run to get Mrs Reed, and when she found out what had happened she said ‘take her away to the red-room and lock her in there’. This shows again how cruel the family are to Jane. Mrs Reed didn’t even hear Jane’s side of the story and put her in the red room as a punishment straight away. Just before Jane was put in the red room, one of the servants tries to scare Jane by saying ‘God will punish her; he will strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? ‘ this builds up even more fear in Jane.

As soon as Jane enters the red room Charlotte Bronte describes the room really well using broken up sentences which adds to the tension. You get the feeling that the room is cold and isolated- ‘The red-room was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in: I might say never’ this makes the room seem very lonely. She also describes the room as being ‘chill, because it seldom had a fire’ this makes it feel cold, depressing and neglected. Even the colour of the room makes it seem frightening and miserable because red is associated with blood and death.

Jane tells us that her uncle Mr Reed died in the red room: ‘Mr Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s men; and, since that day a sense of dreary concentration had guarded it from frequent intrusion’. Because Jane is so young, knowing this would frighten her even more. Jane must of felt very small in that room- ‘the bed rose before me’ and there was a ‘high dark wardrobe’ it seems like all the furniture is towering above her and that everything is so much bigger than her.

After finding the door was locked, Jane went across to the mirror and she thinks she sees a strange figure- ‘and the strange little figure there gazing at me with a white face and arms speckling in the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving, where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit; I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp’ Jane might be thinking that she’s seeing the spirit of her dead uncle at this point. It must be really frightening for a child to be locked up in a room at such a young age, so Jane started to imagine things.

Although Jane is really frightened, she is really angry about the injustice of her punishment. She feels annoyed that because Mrs Reeds children are much more misbehaved than her and they do not get harsh punishments. Jane describes Eliza as ‘headstrong and selfish’, and Georgina as having ‘a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage and was universally indulged’ this shows how Jane does not like them and is very judgmental of them. She then goes on to describe John, the reason for her being in the red room.

Jane says that he ‘twisted the necks of the pigeons’ and referred to his mother as ‘old girl’ this shows how rude John was and that Jane is furious that Mrs Reed called him ‘her own darling’ and was horrible to Jane. At this point, Jane is frightened but not quite terrified- ‘my blood was still warm’, she is feeling more angry and resentful. As time passes, Jane get more and more frightened because it gets darker in the red room ‘daylight began to forsake the red room’ as Jane is so young, most children that age are afraid of the dark.

The wind must also have been frightening for Jane ‘the wind howling in the grove behind the hall’, wind makes ghostly noises so this makes the atmosphere frightening. The room is getting colder as well as dark which makes it even more unpleasant for Jane. Jane starts to think about Mr Reed and how if he were still alive he would have treated her kindly, she knows this because it was one of his last wishes, that Mrs Reed would look after Jane as is she was a child of her own.

Jane then began to think about Mr Reeds spirit ‘I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought of Mr Reeds spirit’ Mr Reeds last wishes had been ignored and Jane thought his spirit might appear to her in that room to help her, while she does not want to see him, ‘and rise before me in this chamber’. Because Jane keeps dwelling on ghosts and spirits her mind starts to play tricks on her.

She think she hears a ‘preternatural voice’ Jane must have been really terrified to start hearing things. After looking round the dark room Jane then thinks she sees a light moving across the wall to the ceiling ‘it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head’ Jane was petrified at this stage. Charlotte Bronte describes Jane’s fear in a lot of detail ‘my heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something near me’ I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down’. Bessie the servant hears Jane shaking the lock in ‘desperate effort’ and comes to her.

One of the other servants thinks Jane is putting it on that she is scared just to get out of her punishment. Mrs Reed heard the noise Jane was making and did not let her leave the red room ‘Mrs Reed, impatient of my new frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without further parley’ this shows how nasty Mrs Reed is so Jane, as she is aware of how much Jane is suffering and she makes her remain in the red room. At the end of chapter two, Jane becomes unconscious ‘soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene’ this shows the intense terror Jane must have been in.