Jane Eyre : Textual Analysis of Chapter 26

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Jane Eyre : Textual Analysis of Chapter 26

        In the pages leading up to Chapter 26 Jane is in a state of emotional turmoil. She has accepted her master’s proposal, although she has shown signs that she is mentally unprepared to be re-christened ‘Mrs. Rochester’. The passage starts just as Jane and Mr. Rochester are arriving at the church, and Jane describes ‘the gray old house of God’ rising before her.

        The opening sentences themselves give us an insight to Jane’s mental condition. Throughout the novel Brontë depicts Jane as pious and God-fearing. On Rochester’s proposal, she declares their equality in the eyes of God; ‘It is my spirit that addresses your spirit, as if… we stood at God’s feet, equal, as we are!’ However in this instance she seems to regard the church with more weariness and contempt, calling it ‘gray’ and ‘old’. Jane also calls the church a ‘temple’, and coupled with her reference to the altar, there may be barbarous undertones, with the ‘temple’ suggesting some kind of pagan religion, and the altar a sacrifice: the identity of the victim would be obvious. Jane’s apparent shift in attitude towards The Church shows her unrest, as she is seeing it as a condemning force rather than a liberating one.

        Some of the language Jane uses to describe her surroundings suggests that she feels the presence of a predator. There is something sinister in the way she describes the church as ‘rising calm’, like some kind of stealthy animal with its prey in its sights. Could Rochester be the predator and Jane the prey? This idea is further supported by other imagery in Jane’s description, such as ‘a rook wheeling round the steeple’. The rook is a carnivorous scavenger, and this gothic image has similar implications regarding Jane’s feelings. Perhaps the suggestions from the ‘wheeling’ of the rook are twofold, in that it may reflect the spinning of Jane’s thoughts as she ruminates unceasingly over the situation. Jane describes the ‘blood’ as having ‘momentarily fled’ from her face, which again implies such apprehension. Such dark and pale imagery as Jane describes mirrors the bleak, austere opening to the passage.

        As the passage progresses we encounter the ‘figures of two strangers’. Their significance is as yet unrecognised, but their unconscious presence before their secondary introduction makes the scene feel that all is not as it should be. The inappropriate reference to ‘the few mossy headstones’ also gives the air that something is awry. Mr Rochester does not notice these two shadows, not even in the church: this may indicate that he has a preoccupation of some kind, and as a result his perception of the outside world has been reduced.

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        The first half of the passage is rich, although transitory, in description. Jane gives short, fleeting accounts of different aspects of her environment, with each phrase separated by punctuation; ‘the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner.’ Jane is ephemeral in her account, she is paying unnatural attention to her surroundings, suggesting hesitation on her circumstances.

It is interesting to compare the account of this ceremony with Jane’s second, successful binding to Rochester. Having successfully married Rochester in the final chapter of ...

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