Fearful and ghastly to me – oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face – it was a savage face…the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?…Of the foul German spectre – the Vampyre.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 25. The night before Jane and Rochester’s wedding is an eventful and frightening one for her, as a fearful-looking woman enters her bedroom. Jane doesn’t know yet that it is Bertha Mason, Rochester’s wife. Jane describes her features in monstrous and supernatural terms, with savage face, swollen lips and bloodshot eyes, and reminding her of a vampire! Bertha Mason, a mad woman of Creole heritage kept under lock and key in Rochester’s attic, is demonized here.