Self-abandoned, relaxed and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, I felt the torrent come; to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me – a remembrance of God.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 26. When Jane learns the shocking truth about Rochester’s wife she returns to the solitude of her room. The metaphor of a Biblical deluge is used to convey Jane’s emotional anguish and feelings of loss. The flood is seen as divine punishment for Rochester’s sin against God and Jane’s weakness in loving him more than religion.