Jane Eyre Pathetic Fallacy Quotes

The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 1. As Jane reads a book on birds, the author makes striking use of pathetic fallacy, with the images of the natural world accurately mirroring Jane’s own feelings and emotions. Jane is the rock standing alone in the swollen sea, the broken boat on a desolate coast, the ghastly moon peering at a sinking wreck. Each is a metaphorical symbol of her desolation at Gateshead, where she is isolated and unloved. The moon appears as a metaphor throughout the novel, presiding over the different situations Jane finds herself in. The rock here also symbolizes Jane’s strength and her resistance to the abuse she suffers at the hands of the Reeds.

Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation: that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace: as it was I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 6. Had Jane left a happy home to go to Lowood, she believes that she would have regretted her move to the boarding school. But because she spent an unhappy childhood at Gateshead, she is instead excited by her situation at Lowood. This is symbolized by the howling wind and chaos outside her window, an example of pathetic fallacy.

Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 9. Jane describes the arrival of spring at Lowood, where she and the other girls have suffered under the school’s harsh regime and deprivations. The coming of the pleasant spring weather lifts her spirits and reflects a new hope and inner strength felt by Jane. This is an example of pathatic fallacy, where nature imagery is used to comment on human nature. Here is the fuller quote: “But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grewover those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”

The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window and carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and strained plaster of Lowood, that my spirit rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me – one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 11. Jane’s first morning at Thornfield is described in positive terms. Bronte uses the bright weather and nature to reflect Jane’s mood of hope after the darkness of Lowood, and to foreshadow the positive experiences she will have at Thornfield, where she will discover her future husband.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four…Where the sun had gone down in simple state – pure of the pomp of clouds – spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 23. Right through this chapter nature symbolically mimics the feelings aroused within Jane by Rochester. The passions ignited between them are reflected in the imagery used to describe the skies on this midsummer’s evening. They are “burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame.”

But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master’s face, near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 23. After Jane joyfully accepts Mr. Rochester’s marriage proposal, the weather takes a sudden turn for the worse and the chestnut tree writhes and groans in the wind. In this passage we see an example of pathetic fallacy, where nature and the elements combine to foreshadow painful times ahead for the couple’s relationship.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 23. In the last lines of this chapter we learn that the great chestnut tree, a symbol of Jane and Rochester’s relationship, has been struck by lighting. It was underneath it that Rochester proposed to Jane. The splitting of the tree foreshadows that the couple will also be split by the revelation of the existence of Rochester’s secret wife Bertha. This is a dramatic example of the use of pathetic fallacy.

As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to thrown on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 25. There is an excellent example of the use of pathetic fallacy to reflect a change of mood. As Jane looks at the split halves of the chestnut tree, she notices that the weather is turning gloomy. The blood-red moon is half overcast in deep cloud and the wind gives off a melancholy wail. Jane finds it sad to listen to and runs off. This is foreshadowing of the disaster that is about to happen at Jane and Rochester’s wedding.
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