How Thornfield projects that good things are going to happen to JAne Eyre during her time there.

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Jaime Gemmell                Jane Eyre

In the novel Jane Eyre Jane stays in many places, and the style of the place shows how good her life is going to be there. Thornfield is very different to the other places she stays at and in this essay I will explain.

At the beginning of Chapter Eleven Jane write ‘A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play…’  This is very upbeat and hopeful, it shows that something good is going to happen and draws the reader into when she says ‘ …and when I the curtain up this time, reader, you must fancy you see…’.  She addresses the reader personally, accepting he is there and setting the scene to him individually.

Jane’s first sight of Thornfield is not a good one as it is dark when she first sees it; this could be to show that the future is mysterious and there are many secrets hidden in the house. The inside of the house, the room with Mrs Fairfax in is described as ‘a snug, small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an armchair, high backed and old-fashioned…’ This gives the impression of a wonderful place, or it could be describing Mrs Fairfax through the furniture and atmosphere of the room. It shows that there is someone who is warm and giving in the house. She is confused by how Mrs Fairfax treats her, she is used to coldness and stiffness, from Lowood and Gateshead, it is new to her and she felt uncomfortable being treated so.

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When she is taken up to her room she mentions ‘…a very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and the gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude’. Both of these words are very gothic which gives a sense of foreboding. This is an obvious contrast to the room she was just in with Mrs Fairfax. But in the morning she describes a ‘…bright little place…’   she mentions how different she finds it from Lowood and how much warmer it is to herself and ‘…my spirits rose at the view’. This easily shows what her life was like before ...

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