Imagery in Jane Eyre

Imagery in Jane EyreMuch of the mental imagery of Jane Eyre is obvious-the chestnut tree, the grim landscapes, the red room that is like Hell. But dickens images are so pervasive that they serve as a bottom for the entire novel fire and irrigate system-and their extremes, the incinerates of lust and the trumpery of indifference. The fire is in Janes spirit and in Rochesters eyes. Jane desires life, fire, feeling (p. 105) Rochester has strange fire in his control (p. 145). If these two are fire, St. washstand Rivers (note the last name) contains the icy waters that would tramp out fire, destroy heat energy. His nature is frozen over with an ice of replacement (p. 334) when he tells Jane, I am cold no fervour infects me, her solvent is, W present(predicate)as I am hot, and fire dissolves ice (p. 364). From the start of the novel, Charlotte Brontas fire and water imagery indicates the essential idea. The fiery passion of Jane, and, later, Rochester, must be quelled by the co ld waters of self-control-but not destroyed by the ice of repression. If their bodies burn, their minds must dampen the fires. Jane warns herself that secret cope might kindle in spite of appearance her life an ignis fatuus (p. 153). Yet it is Rochester who is all-fire when, disguised as a gypsy, he has his interrogate with Jane, she feels his powerful attraction and says, Dont bear me long the fire scorches me. Rochester, for his part, realizes Janes double prize she has the fire of bodily love, The flame flickers in the eye, but withal the imperturbable control of the soul, the eye shines like dew (p. 190). Earlier, Rochester insists that Jane is cold because she is only if no concern strikes the fire from you that is within you (p. 187). When Bertha, Rochesters old passionate flame, sets his bed on fire, Jane onlys him by dousing the bed with water. Miss BrontEs imagery is precise and explains the relationship in the midst of the central compositors cases. Bertha repr esents the flames of hellfire that have already scorched Rochester. Jane, fiery though she is, has sufficient control to water down these fires. Jane brought my own water jug, baptise the couch afresh, and, by Gods aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it (p. 142). She will save them both from hellfire by refusing the passionate advances of Rochester. After she learns of his previous marriage, she lastly gains release from her burning agony and imagines herself laid down in the wizened bed of a great river, and I heard a satiate loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come .. . . (p. 281). Religiontrue religion, not the frigid religion that will characterize Rivers-is described in equipment casualty of water the waters came into my soul . . . I came into deep waters the floods overflowed me (p. 282). And this water in Janes spirit enables her to withstand what Rochester calls the pure, powerful flame (p. 299) that fuses them. Despite the app ly of fiery iron that grasped my brisks (p. 299), despite her veins running fire, despite Rochesters flaming glance which is likened to the glow of a furnace (p. 301), Jane flees to the wet turf and sheds stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears (p. 305). This subject matter downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 100058 AM every(prenominal) use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ROUND TABLE 217 Although Jane is soaked with rainwater in her wanderings, her emotional fires still burn, ready to be re-awakened when the dangers of Rochesters call downs have passed. Rochester alone must be purged by the fires he long ago illuminate between himself and Bertha. This time there is no Jane to maintain him from the searing, mutilating flames that destroy Bertha and Thornfield, and, ironically, attribute out the fiery gleam in his eyes. But Jane, meanwhile, is guarding her own flame from the freezing heartlessness of St. John Rivers. His ice kisses cannot reach her. She cannot forever keep the fi res of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never tell a cry, though the impri discussioned flame consumed vital after vital (p. 417). She escapes from Rivers chilling grasp and returns to the scorched ruin of Rochester where she can kindle the magnificence of his lamp which has been quenched (p. 417). Soon she re-awakens the glow of their love, and their two natures join in a steady flame that burns neither as wildly as the lightning that destroyed the chestnut, nor as dimly as the setting sun of St. John Rivers religious dream. The fire-water image unders internalitys the basic idea of Jane Eyre just as love must find a middle way between the flames of passion and the waters of pure reason, so Jane must find a easy mean between egocentric rage and Christlike submission, between auntie Reed and Helen Burns, between the wild, Byronic Rochester and the tempered, controlled Rivers. Jane Eyre achieves this successful median in her own character and in her fu ture life with the chastened Rochester. Image and idea join in a novel that not only shows the wildly passionate appeal of romantic art but also operates under the concept of egg control.This novel revolves round Bakha who is a sweeper boy. The author has chosen a conspicuous day from his life and through the presentation of the blot occurring on that particular day, he has drawn our attention towards the plight of low set nation. First situation is the pollution through touch of a circle Hindu. It creates a catastrophe. As Bakha walks along the road eating Jalebi and recalling the arrangement he has made for learning English, his gaze is drawn to a woman posing in a window. He is so deeply lost in his thoughts that he has accidently touched someone passing by. Suddenly he hears,keep to the side of the road, o he low- clique vermin why dont you call, you swine and announce your shape up Do you know you have touched me and defiled me, you cock- eyed son of a bow- legged scorpio n now I will have to go and take a bath to purify myself.Bakha is apparently seized with fear, humility and servility. Of movement he was aware of his status in life but it was a sudden shock. At this moment Bakha realizes for the first time that the society which condemns and humiliates him forms a moral barrier which he alone is unable to break down. This sensory faculty of his own status is like a ray of light shooting through darkness. (P59) in this regard, Alastair Niven in his book The yoke of Pity A study in the fictional writing of Mulk Raj Anand comments that this revelation is,as fast as light and as profound as darkness. He is deuced to be an unpalpable in the eyes of humanity forever, and his dreams of attaining some mixture of individual dignity are pretentions and nave.The second major situation in the novel is when Bakhas sister Sohini is molested by the priest. The irony in this situation, Anand makes us realizes, is that hue and cry is raised against the mole sted and not the molester. Thus we see that the sacred men who appear in Anands fiction are corrupt to the core and in their eyes the lowest of low are quite touchable for the purpose of satisfying their lust.For example, the ascetic in Coolie- he appears as Pandit Surajbhan in The Road seduces a childless woman under the pretext of number her fertile. Here in Untouchable also, though the holy priest makes unplaced attempts to seduce Bakhas sister, the author has exposed the contradiction in the thinking of the so called high- caste people, while a mere touch of the clothes of an inviolable is thought to pollute a higher caste, sexual union is non- objectionable. Sohini raises an misgiving to save herself from being molested by the priest Kali Nath but the priest is very clever and extricates himself from the difficult situation by shouting, Polluted, Polluted. The writer here draws our attention towards the unjust and condemnable behaviour of the so called high caste people wh o can easily go scotfree by turning the beak on to the suffering, sexually exploited girl. There seems to be a disaster of protest and revenge. But Anand underlines the fact that revolt in such cases is unable and ineffective. Bakha knows the truth of the whole thing that he finds himself incapable of taking revenge. He returns home crestfallen and shout against the indignities, brutalities heaped by high caste people upon them.The heros immediate impulse is to avenge the insult but he fails to act. It is here typical treatment of the underdog as given by Anand is projected. The burden of the past, the bearing of the ruling class, and their longing for pity and sympathy crush the will to act. The ladened underdog in the hero continues and devours him like a monster. He is a number picture of a dog crouching at the door of a spreading hall.When Gandhi calls upon the untouchables to purify their lives, cultivate the habits of cleanliness, and rid themselves of the evil habits l ike drinking booze and eating carrion Bakha feels confused and cannot agree with him. But soon he feels elevate up when Gandhi calls upon them not to accept from caste Hindus leavings from their plates, and receive from them only dear grain if it is courteously offered. The Mahatma implies that the untouchables should not compromise their self-respect he also organizes to the caste people to be more charitable and kind to the untouchable. At the close of his speech he censures the caste Hindus for their ignorance of their religion and urges them to declare circulate all public wells, temples, roads, schools, sanatoriums to the untouchables, and carry on propaganda against untouchability. To drive home his point to the gathering, apparently to show how serious a matter is untouchability, he lectures on this social evil and the urgent need to root it out.