Themes on Jane Eyre

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Themes with Techniques Class Conflicts * “You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant, mamma says…” (John Reed) He claims the right of the gentleman, implying that Jane’s family was from a lower class. (C1) * As an upper-servant, Mrs. Fairfax feels a great difference between herself and the other servants in the house. For example, she likes Leah and John, "but then you see they are only servants, and one can't converse with them on terms of equality; one must keep them at due distance for fear of losing one's authority." The strict hierarchical system in England requires that everyone maintain their proper place, yet, as the novel shows, the differences between classes are constantly blurred Independence * [scene where Jane reads a book] The red curtains that enclose Jane in her isolated window seat connect with the imagery of the red room to which Jane is banished to later on. The colour red is symbolic; connoting fire and passion, red offers vitality, but also the potential to burn everything that comes in its way to ashes. The symbolic energy of the red curtains contrast with the dreary November day that Jane watches outside her window: "a pale blank of mist and cloud." Throughout the book, passion and fire will contrast with paleness and ice. * Jane's choice of books is also significant in this scene. Like a bird, she would like the freedom of flying away from the alienation she feels at the Reed's house. The situation of the sea fowl that inhabit "solitary rocks and promontories," is similar to Jane's: Like them, she lives in isolation. The extreme climate of the birds' homes in the Arctic, "that reservoir of frost and snow," the "death-white realms," again creates a contrast with the fire that explodes later in the chapter during John and Jane's violent encounter. * When Jane is taken to the red room, she uses the imagery
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