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Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel | English Literature


Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel





Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte utilizes the Gothic literary tradition (Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel).

This is literary tradition that originated in Germany and became very popular in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. Its purpose was to invoke a sense of fear, mystery, suspense and terror in the reader’s mind. It was Horace Walpole who first used the term “Gothic” as it appliesto literature.





With the passage of time the gothic genre came to alnowledge various characteristics. Brontes’s Jane Eyre also contains certain traits of what came to known as a gothic novel. It was published in the year 1847, when gothic as a genre was at an upsurge in England. (Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel)





Jane Eyre makes many of the elements found in a gothic novel. The gothic peraphernalia is first presented in the novel in the ‘red room’ scene. Imegery is used to represent this room as horrified, terror like, dark and secret. Jane describes the room as having “curtains of deep red damask” and “crimson cloth” that metaphorize the room as bloody, linking the room to ‘death’.





The red room was an extra chamber in Gateshead Hall and was seldom slept in, yet it was the largest and stateliest.





It is that room where Jane’s uncle Mr. Reed died. Death occupies a major space in gothic fiction and the red room thus seems to be very foreboding and frightening. Jane oftend had images of her late uncle haunting the room.





She says, “and I thought Mr Reed’s spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister’s child, might quit its abode - whether in the church volt or in the unknown world of the departed – and rise before me in this chamber.” (Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel)





Again, The Thornfield Hall too is considered to be a gothic icon. This ancestral manor forms a major part of the novel Jane Eyre and is the setting of Jane – Rochester romance, which can also be termed as Gothic romance. Such type of romance are often set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles as that of the Thornfield Hall and are tinged with mystery, intrigue, drama and the supernatural. Thornfield Hall bears the mysterious past of Rochester and when Jane first arrived at that manor she could then already sense that something was very strange about that place.





Jane notices certain aspects that developed a certain uneasiness for her like “candle-light gleamed from one curtained bow-window” with the rest in complete darkness. The dark environments of secrets and ghosts, in relation to Bartha Mason greatly advances the frightful feeling of Gothic mystery. (Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel)





Explain the red-room episode in Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre makes many of the elements found in a gothic novel. The gothic peraphernalia is first presented in the novel in the ‘red room’ scene. Imegery is used to represent this room as horrified, terror like, dark and secret. Jane describes the room as having “curtains of deep red damask” and “crimson cloth” that metaphorize the room as bloody, linking the room to ‘death’.
The red room was an extra chamber in Gateshead Hall and was seldom slept in, yet it was the largest and stateliest.
It is that room where Jane’s uncle Mr. Reed died. Death occupies a major space in gothic fiction and the red room thus seems to be very foreboding and frightening. Jane oftend had images of her late uncle haunting the room.
She says, “and I thought Mr Reed’s spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister’s child, might quit its abode - whether in the church volt or in the unknown world of the departed – and rise before me in this chamber.” (Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel)
Again, The Thornfield Hall too is considered to be a gothic icon. This ancestral manor forms a major part

How is Thornfield Hall Gothic?

Again, The Thornfield Hall too is considered to be a gothic icon. This ancestral manor forms a major part of the novel Jane Eyre and is the setting of Jane – Rochester romance, which can also be termed as Gothic romance. Such type of romance are often set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles as that of the Thornfield Hall and are tinged with mystery, intrigue, drama and the supernatural. Thornfield Hall bears the mysterious past of Rochester and when Jane first arrived at that manor she could then already sense that something was very strange about that place.
Jane notices certain aspects that developed a certain uneasiness for her like “candle-light gleamed from one curtained bow-window” with the rest in complete darkness. The dark environments of secrets and ghosts, in relation to Bartha Mason greatly advances the frightful feeling of Gothic mystery.

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