Comment on Bronte's use of language in 'the first meeting' extract from Jane Eyre.

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Comment on Bronte’s use of language in ‘the first meeting’ extract from Jane Eyre

The meeting of Jane and Rochester shows an abrupt change in language and atmosphere, Bronte shows this by describing the surroundings with unusual imagery and hard words such as ‘rough’ ‘dark’ and ‘strong’. We get the sense of supernatural feelings through the language as the ‘Gytrash’ is mentioned. It is from the tales Bessie used to tell Jane, and was a large creature that haunted travellers on their way. This shows us how Jane is almost scaring herself by thinking that a creature is coming to haunt her in the dark. The meeting is given a gothic feeling as the ‘Gytrash’ is mentioned. It is as though Bronte compares the gytrash to Rochester and it is described as a ‘lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head:’ it is also compared to the dog, which again shows us that Jane has some sort of fear of meeting a stranger along the way.  But once she talks to the stranger, she doesn’t react to that fear in the correct way, instead she disobeys him in order to help him. Bronte uses imaginative and supernatural language to describe its ‘pretercanine eyes’ being deadly.    

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The mysterious atmosphere is cracked with the noise and clatter of ‘man and horse’ slipping. A clear change in the calm language of the novel is shown when Rochester’s character is shown through his very first words, ‘What the deuce is to do now?’ A little humour is added but once Jane and Rochester come nearer to each other we begin to find out a lot more about them through their use of language. This shows how their meeting isn’t totally supernatural in the negative sense and that there is a positive side to the characters meeting as they do. ...

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