Jane Eyres character can be understood more clearly through the gothic elements employed in the novel
The term ‘gothic’ started as a reference to a Germanic tribe called the Goths, it was then used to signify ‘Germanic’ and then to signify ‘medieval’. The word gothic is usually used to represent anything that can be seen as supernatural or a dark secret. A gothic novel is usually set in a dark and dreary building and normally has references to some or all of the following; dungeons, underground passages, sliding doors, dark, gloomy attics and locked doors. ... Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre has many of these gothic elements in it and it is through these gothic elements that the reader can gain a clearer understanding of Jane Eyre’s character. As a child Jane Eyre, an orphan, lived with her aunt, Mrs Reed, and her cousins at Gateshead Hall. ... The marriage is then called off and after meeting Bertha Jane leaves Rochester and ends up broke and begging on the street, where she meets St John. ... St John proposes to Jane but Jane admits that she doesn’t love him and goes looking for Rochester. ... The gothic elements in the novel are first shown with the ‘Red Room’. The ‘Red Room’ is considered a gothic element as it has something supernatural about it, when Jane is in the ‘Red Room’ she believes she has seen a ghost and it is not until looking back at the event years later that she realises there was probably a reasonable explanation for it all. The incident with the ‘Red Room’ occurs when Jane is still a child living at Gateshead with her aunt and her cousins. ... Whilst in the room Jane witnesses what she thinks to be a ghost, “a light gleamed on the wall” (Vol1, Ch2, Pg17) and “a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings”, (Vol1, Ch2, Pg17) but in reality as she is looking back she realises that it was probably just a light outside “I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern, carried by some one across the lawn” (Vol 1, Ch 2, Pg 17).