Another way that Charlotte Bronte uses setting to create a sense of sympathy for Jane Eyre is the ‘red room’ section. Jane is forced to stay in a room where her uncle died; here she panics and faints. Charlotte Bronte uses this scene to create a sense of sympathy very successfully. She describes the red room as a very spooky, ‘solemn’ and scary place. Practically everything in this room is said to be red. Red is a vibrant, gothic colour, associated with danger and death, therefore this would be a very scary place for a young girl. She also says that Jane’s uncle had ‘breathed his last’ in this room and that it is avoided by the grown ups as it is believed to be haunted. Jane is only a young girl and she is very scared, this helps to create sympathy for her as the audience will again realise the cruelty she experiences and will therefore feel sorry for her.
Another device that Charlotte Bronte uses to create sympathy is language. For example, the way people talk to Jane, the abusive language they aim at her and the threats they give her, such as in the second chapter when the maids, Bessie and Miss Abbot, lock her in the red room. Upon leaving the room Miss Abbot turns to Jane and says ‘if you don’t repent, something bad may be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away’ these are very spooky, scary words, and Jane is very young. This would evoke a sense of sympathy from the reader as they will feel the worry that Jane is going through and pity her. Also, the way in which Mrs Reed talks about Jane throughout the first chapter would create a sense of sympathy she says that unless Jane is more ‘attractive’ and ‘childlike’ she cannot be allowed to spend time with her, this would cause sympathy as it shows the reader that the aunt doesn’t love her.
The chapter structure of this book also helps to contribute towards the sympathy felt by the reader for Jane. The style in which Charlotte Bronte has structured the chapters, helps the reader to get a clear understanding of what Jane is going through. Each chapter begins with narration, Jane telling the reader what is happening to her and around her- this would create sympathy as it says that she is being left out or locked up in the red room, and therefore the reader feels sorry for her as she is being treated cruelly, for example, in the first chapter of the book, Mrs. Reed doesn’t allow Jane to stay with her and her children one evening, ‘Me she had dispensed from the group’. Next, Charlotte Bronte uses dialogue, people talking to Jane, using abusive words. This helps to prove the point that Jane is being treated cruelly and is unloved, for example when Jane inquires as to why she is not being allowed to spend time with them, Mrs. Reed says ‘There is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders’. Then, there is another narration which tells of Jane’s feelings. This would make the reader even more sympathetic as she tells the audience of her loneliness and how she feels about the unkindness towards her- at this point the reader would feel close to Jane, because her feelings are open to them, and this sense of closeness makes them feel more sympathetic.
An understanding of the social context of the time, and the way it is portrayed in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ also helps to create a sense of sympathy for Jane. In the Victorian era, family and religion were the most important thing, especially to those who had money and wanted to impress. At the head of the family was the father, then the mother followed by the children and then the servants. The father had overall ruling over the whole family. Jane Eyre’s uncle, the owner of Thornfield Hall and the father of the family, loved Jane and wanted to take care of her, but when he died, Jane’s aunt became owner of the house and the ruler of the family. She did not love Jane, and resented taking care of her, only doing so because she had promised Jane’s uncle that she would. Also, as Jane was now of no blood relation to Mrs. Reed or her children, Jane was no longer part of the family, she did not pay her way, and is therefore lower and poorer than the servants, a fact that she is reminded of in the first 2 chapters of the book, ‘if she (Mrs. Reed) were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse.’ This is because the Victorian ideal of a child was ‘seen but not heard’; they were pretty children and were happy. Jane refers to herself as ‘plain’ in the text and is also very feisty, intelligent and brave; her aunt does not like this, so she does not fit in with the family. This would evoke a sense of sympathy for Jane as she is a stranger in her own home with nowhere to go and nobody to love or care for her.
