Style: Chapters 12-22

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Plot Recap

Jane Eyre is a poor 18-year-old working as a governess at Thornfield, a mansion owned by the wealthy Mr. Rochester. Though abrasive and the product of a mysterious past, Mr. Rochester soon becomes a good friend to Jane and they spend many evenings talking, and Jane soon falls in love with him. However, after a fire almost kills Mr. Rochester in his sleep — which Jane suspects Grace Poole, a creepy employee at Thornfield, to have started — he abruptly leaves the manor and returns with a group of high society peers, one of whom it appears he plans to marry, leaving Jane distraught. Jane’s suspicion of Grace deepens when a guest at the house is injured in the middle of the night and she is recruited to care for him, but Mr. Rochester refuses to send her away, and continues to keep Jane at arm’s length. Jane returns to her childhood home to visit the deathbed of her former benefactress, Mrs. Reed, and learns that she has an uncle who once tried to get in contact with her, but has not gone looking for him yet.

Style

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the style of Jane Eyre is Charlotte Brontë’s truly prolific use of colons and semicolons. Take, for instance, this passage from Chapter 20:

“An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face — the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood” (231-232).

I think, instead of being a conscious choice to affect the novel’s meaning, this is just a quirk of Brontë’s syntax and emblematic of the time period. The semicolons seem to be used mostly as commas, so, without doing any research on the evolution of grammar over the last 170 years, my guess is that it used to be a more common punctuation mark than it is today, and with slightly different usage. I just felt any account of the experience of Jane Eyre's style would be incomplete without reference to the humble (semi)colon. 

Jane’s Narration

The actual aspect of the book’s style I want to explore is Jane’s voice as a narrator. Her personality really shapes the way the story is told, and, likewise, the stylistic elements of the story help us learn more about her personality.

Jane’s tone is one element of style that is important to understand. Though one might think Jane Eyre would be stuffy and formal, Jane is often humorous or self-deprecating, which adds depth to the story. For example, Jane describes her budding love for Mr. Rochester in a realistic, genuine way:

“Most true is it that ‘beauty is in the eye of the gazer.’ My master’s colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, board and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth, — all energy, decision, will, — were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me: they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me, — that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his. I had not intended to love him: the reader knows I had wrought hard to extricate from my soul the germs of love there detected” (193).

Think for a second how this passage would read if written in a different style. The gist of what Jane is saying here is “I love him, even though he is objectively ugly and it would be easier not to.” Why not write that? Because Jane is habitually descriptive, thoughtful, and thorough. She has no pretenses or illusions; she knows Mr. Rochester is not conventionally attractive, and she loves him anyway. The fact that she takes the time to explain these factors shows her studious nature. We should also pay attention to the reasons she explains for her love: Mr. Rochester is full of “energy, decision, [and] will,” and “interest.” This again shows the depth in Jane’s character. She places value in intellect and ambition, rather than superficial looks, and comes to find his looks attractive anyway after falling in love with his mind. I find the careful, descriptive style of this paragraph to be effective in conveying the depth of Jane’s feelings — it is much more romantic to explain her reasoning and to go into detail than to just proclaim her love without evidence — and in illustrating her nature.

You may have also noticed in this paragraph that Jane addresses the reader directly, saying “the reader knows I had wrought hard to extricate from my soul the germs of love there detected.” This is fairly common throughout the book, and is therefore another integral aspect of the style. I think this element shows Jane’s introspection and self-awareness; she realizes enough about how her story will be perceived that she can address the audience’s reactions preemptively. I believe the explanation for this quirk is that Jane is supposed to be writing an account of her life at some point after the fact (the full title is Jane Eyre: An Autobiography). Another example of her “breaking the fourth wall” is when she reflects on her relationship with Mr. Rochester:

“I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me — because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction” (205).

This is similar to the example above, although, here, we can also detect a hint of self-deprecating humor: Jane is making fun of herself when she says she couldn’t stop loving him just because he stopped paying attention to her. The passage is also realistic, and speaks to the truth that love usually does not disappear immediately when it is not reciprocated. I think the choice to speak directly to the reader at these junctures is effective because it comes at a point when Jane is communicating a truth the reader is likely to understand: the pain of unrequited love.

Imagery (and a surprise allusion!)

I would be remiss to not mention the imagery present in Jane Eyre as an aspect of its style, as it is often both compelling and symbolic. For example, at the end of Part 1, Jane rescues Mr. Rochester after his bed curtains catch fire in the middle of the night. When she returns to her own room to go to bed, she says,

“Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy, — a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion” (167-168).

This passage is clearly highly symbolic of the turmoil Jane is feeling at the time. She is understandably disturbed by the fire, which she believes Grace Poole, one of the servants at Thornfield, set on purpose. She has also already started struggling with her love for Mr. Rochester, which is not proper, because of both their age gap (she is 18 and he is near 40) and class divide. The image of a turbulent ocean is the perfect metaphor for this inner conflict, and Jane convincingly describes the combatting forces of “trouble” and “joy.” As an added bonus, the choice of water as a symbol is a subtle reference to the water that Jane used to extinguish the fire on Mr. Rochester’s bed, making it an even more poignant reflection of her present reason for inner turmoil.

There is one final stylistic element which, though not yet recurring, is too good not to mention. Jane and Mr. Rochester are at one point on a walk during the beginning of their friendship when he pauses their conversation and looks as if he has seen a ghost. He then says to Jane, “‘During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk — a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres” (157). This caught my eye because we are currently reading Macbeth in AP Literature, but, the more I thought about it, the more significant the allusion seemed. By comparing himself to Macbeth, Mr. Rochester communicates to the reader that he views himself as a tragic hero. This is one of the many hints the reader has had to this point that Mr. Rochester is troubled in some way. He often seems haunted by something in his past, which we can only assume will get back to him at some point during the story. We could even take this allusion as a hint that Mr. Rochester is going to die at the end of Jane Eyre, as tragic heroes usually do. I don’t have enough information to make a guess about that yet, but I have definitely noticed that he believes he could die (at least symbolically) for his troubles, and that is nearly as significant a realization.


Thanks for reading!

Works Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Woodstock, Beekman Publishers, 1980.


Butler, Sian. Turquoise Doorway Cottage, UK. 7 Dec. 2018. Unsplash,

     unsplash.com/photos/8xUShy6U1I8. Accessed 1 Mar. 2021.