pugsly13

Basically doing an essay on the symbolic use of space in Jane Eyre,and I've scanned the book and can't seem to pin-point that symbolism.I can comprehend the use of different classes and the use of a narrator,but can't find any instances of the symbolic use of space.Help will be greatly apprieciated....by the way I'd ask fellow class-mates but their c**ts!!

retired_linton_justin

It's they're c**ts btw. I'd bare that in mind when you're writing your essay.

Ventil

DYOH etc etc.

The space bar is very important for creating a gap between the full stop at the end of one sentence and the start of the next.

Does that help?

retired_dannygirl82

Without giving it away and doing the work for you, look at the descriptive text that sets the scenes in the novel. Are there examples where the environment is either representative of the characters emotions or conveying hidden dangers or meanings?

Been a long time since I’ve read this book but the one that sticks out in my mind is where Rochester and Jane express their love for each other in the garden (I think it was a garden???). Generally though the book is littered with symbolism through nature and architecture.

There is a ton of it in her early years when she’s sent off to school.

Hope this helps.

retired_libbyrelr

Deliberate mistake?

retired_shala

Charlotte Bronte is a really claustrophobic writer; I think the interesting thing with space in her work is that there is very little literal open space, and all sorts of confined/hidden/restrictive spaceS. For example her relationship with Rochester is kind of defined by the rooms he sees her in; her governess room especially and it's a big deal when she is allowed to meet him elsewhere. All her pondering and religiosity is done in a room on her own, a fairly literal figuring of 'women are trapped inside their own heads by society.' Villette by the same author is even more full of this stuff. Then the madwoman's attic is a place that Rochester is free to enter and exit while he won't let jane know of its existence until the woman unfettered by society breaks out of the space her husband put her into. The power dynamics of their relationship defined by space etc.
All fairly dull trad 19th century whinging about being a governess. At least it's not Agnes Grey.

And the obvious comparison with all this claustrophobia and confinement and compartmentalisation is Wuthering Heights, where the two houses are just poles either side of the great open expanse of the moors. Charlotte Bronte has nothing like the metaphysical belief in the power of open elemental space that Emily does. Windows in Jane Eyre is usually Jane looking out moping, whereas the great window scenes at the beginning and end of Wuthering Heights are all about the vicious destructive malevolence of the moors towards the houses.

I can't honestly remember any symbolism of big wide empty open space in Jane Eyre, so go the other way and say how little there is, and that this is symbolic in itself. Then burn the useless book and read Wuthering Heights instead.

retired_jhr2211

By "scanned the book" you mean you looked at the front and back cover?

retired_ks reddy

This book got me binned from English after I wrote my essay on how insufferably dull it was. I still think I was hard done by.

retired_Sherman6842

I would hazard a guess to say the importance of Jane's miserably strict childhood, at the hands of her Aunt (locked in the Red Room), the strict girls' school, contrasted with her overcoming Rochester's attempt to do the same kind of controlling (even though out of love), her winning of power and her total freedom from him when she leaves him, and Bertha's death from being locked away ('held back') in the attic is pretty symbolic of women DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES and, really, it's no coincidence that Jane's growing up charts the change in a woman's experience.