Jane Eyre—A Balance of Elements
...acker. The same elementary struggle rises when Jane is locked up in the red-room to be punished for her passionate outbreak. The room is “chill, because it seldom had fire,” and serves as the counterpart for her emotional state. The description of room itself symbolizes Jane’s position at Gateshead. The bed with its massive mahogany pillars and “curtains of deep red damask,” as well as the red carpet and the “crimson cloth,” depict the warmth and the passion that characterize Jane, while the deep shades that “glared white,” the pale footstool, and the white “easy-chair” that surround the bed, represent the cold conditions that restrain her. Jane’s stay at Lowood also entails the same imagery as shown at Gateshead. Here Jane and her peers are exposed to the burning pain that is inflicted by harsh weather conditions and insufficient clothing, as well as by meager food supplies (50) that eventually led to illness and death, and comfort was only found in “the light and heat of a blazing fire” (51), the drawing on of spring (63), and the overall betterment of Lowood’s situation (71-72). While Jane personifies the natural relationship between fire (passion) and water (circumstances), Sir Edward Rochester’s persona predominantly incorporates the fire imagery. With Rochester’s arrival at Thornfield, the halls were filled with “a warm glow” (99) and “a genial fire” in the dining room’s grate (100). Not only does the setting reflect the passion that streams from his character but also Jane’s description of his physical appearance upon their official introduction in Thornfield’s drawing-room: “broad and jetty eyebrows,” “square forehead,” “full nostrils,” and “grim mouth, chin and jaw;” that relate an impression of the devil, or, at least, a sinful passion. When Rochester bids Jane to “[C]ome closer to the fire” (103), it is as if he tries to seduce her into giving in to her own passion, and eventually to him. This predictive situation is furthermore emphasized by Jane’s obvious affection for Rochester, but her balanced personality restrains her from following her emotions. Rochester is literally connected with fire, when his wife, ‘Grace Poole’, sets his bed on fire and Jane notices the “strange fire in his look” (129) after rescuing him. The relationship between Jane and Rochester is one that is filled with passion and love. Rochester’s passion for Jane causes him to tempt Jane into a step that might not only doom her to the “fire and brimstone” (28) of the afterlife, but also to a living hell; as she says about the thought of becoming his mistress, she would be “fevered with delusive bliss one hour -- suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next” (306). Although the fire imagery prevails within Rochester’s character and the relationship between him and Jane, its counter part—water—seem to trickle alongside. Jane uses it to extinguish the fire in Rochester’s bedroom, and its figurative translation reminds us of Jane’s coldness toward the thought of becoming a mistress, suggesting a balanced notion for Rochester’s burst of passion. The destruction of Thornfield by fire, the associated loss of ‘Grace’, or Bertha Mason, in a fire, and Rochester being disfigured and blinded as a result of fire allow for a rebirth of the couple...