Previous
Genre
Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—Vanity Fair:
The prologue makes an allusion to a popular Victorian novel, William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Brontë thinks Thackeray's satire is far better than that of previously popular satirists, and she dedicates Jane Eyre to him:
[Thackeray] resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr Thackeray, because to him – if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger – I have dedicated this second edition of ‘Jane Eyre.’
Related Themes:
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Housing Insecurity:
Housing insecurity is a motif throughout the novel because Jane depends on others to keep a roof over her head. The first hint of housing insecurity occurs on the "drear November day" when Chapter 1 begins:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room […]. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group [...] Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves in my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Death and Rebirth:
There are several moments throughout the novel at which Jane's life seems to begin anew. In Chapter 9, vivid imagery describing spring at Lowood helps position the school as a place of metaphorical rebirth:
Unlock with LitCharts A+How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow! – when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down ‘ing’ and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless; it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Housing Insecurity:
Housing insecurity is a motif throughout the novel because Jane depends on others to keep a roof over her head. The first hint of housing insecurity occurs on the "drear November day" when Chapter 1 begins:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room […]. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group [...] Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves in my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Sublime Visions:
The imagery with which Jane describes her watercolor paintings in Chapter 13 emphasizes the fact that the novel is told by an unreliable narrator. The watercolors represent landscapes Jane has tried to recreate through the filter of her imagination:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or, rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam[.]
Related Themes:
Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Mr. Rochester's Eyes:
The narrator often uses imagery to describe Mr. Rochester's eyes as windows into the secrets he has concealed inside. For example, in Chapter 14, Jane admires Mr. Rochester's eyes after they have dinner together:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[H]e had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too – not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
Related Themes:
