‘I heard a gallop of a horse in the distance on the road.’ This is reminiscent of Jane’s first meeting with Mr Rochester, ‘I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and for a distant country.’ This enforces Jane’s fear that, as quickly and as magically as Mr Rochester arrived in her life, he could just as quickly leave it. The sense of her struggle and worry is shown through the repetition of the word ‘I’ as she tries to share the happenings of her dream.
‘The stones rolled from under my feet, the Ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror…I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment.’ Rochester riding away from Jane in her dream forewarns of his imminent separation from Jane, due to the discovering of his wife. The imagery of the stone’s rolling from beneath her and the Ivy giving way, foresees the exposure of the lie, as the thing Jane trusted and believed in the most, i.e. Mr Rochester and their love, turns out to be built of falsehood, so is in itself, false.
Jane awakes to find an intruder in her room, a strange woman, who is in fact, Bertha Mason; Mr Rochester’s current wife. ‘She took my veil from it’s place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then threw it over her own head, and turned to mirror.’ From the reflection in the mirror, Bertha is described as ‘ghastly’ with a ‘discoloured’ and ‘savage face’ and when adjourned with Jane’s expensive and elaborate veil, we are given a sense of what Jane could become if she were to marry Mr Rochester (at least at this point in the novel). ‘The lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed; the black eyes raised over the bloodshot eyes.’ Bertha reminds Jane of a ‘Vampyre’, and her appearance in the mirror relates back to Jane’s own supernatural appearance in the mirror in the Red Room. The similarity between the two women is then brought forward. They are both individual, thinking women, however, they differ as much as they are similar and though Jane started out with the same rage and hostility, she has tamed herself where Bertha has let her passion reign free.
‘It removed my veil from it’s gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor trampled on them.’ People throughout the years have interpreted the Rendering of the wedding veil, in many different ways; some see Bertha as Jane’s suppressed rebelliousness seeing the gaudy veil as Rochester’s way of altering Jane’s identity through the buying of expensive gifts. In this way, the ripping of the veil is a resistance towards this and is saving Jane from a life of dependence and insignificance. Another is given that the tearing of the veil is symbolic obtrusion of act of sex and, in fact, through ripping the veil, Bertha is representatively ending Jane’s virginity, before Mr Rochester can. These views are quite feminist in their ways and though the book contains some feminist points, I do not believe it was Bronte’s intent to make it a Feminist book. Though I appreciate the points made by these views and believe them valid, my personal interpretation was that the rendering of the veil symbolises the destruction of Jane’s marital dreams brought on by the realisation of the living ‘wife’. The two halves of the veil represent Mr Rochester and Jane and the inevitable separation these events must incur. The fact that it is Bertha not only rips but then tramples on the veil, and subsequently the relationship between Mr Rochester and Jane further emphasizes this. ‘I lost consciousness for the second time in my life.’ It all proves to much for Jane and she faints; this again brings to mind the Red Room, where she first looses consciousness, her imagination had then over exhausted her and she found escape from it through unconsciousness. Here, however, it is not her imagination, which she is overcome by, but reality though she escapes it in the same way.
‘The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain.’ Mr Rochester tries to convince her that it was all in her mind and excuse it as a bi-product of her ‘nerves’. Mr Rochester manipulates her, relying on her trust and love to cover up his secret. ‘I must be careful of you, my treasure; nerves like yours were not made for rough handling’ He patronises her and treats her almost as a child, bringing up the pending wedding to try and distract her from this subject, ‘When we are united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors.’ The use of the words ‘mental terrors’ seem condescending, they are little more than nightmares and again the idea of her as a child, defenceless and weak, is shown. His dominance of the conversation and relationship is apparent. ‘Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such…since even you cannot explain to me the mystery of that awful visitant.’ ‘And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.’ Here Mr Rochester enforces his power over her by saying that if he cannot explain it, it then it must be not be true. This shows the male mentality of the times, that if a man does not recognise something it just isn’t worth acknowledging. It also shows where the power lies within the Victorian era, and that is with the men.
‘When I looked around the room…there – on the carpet – I saw- what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis, - the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves.’ However, Jane being a persistent and intelligent women, soon proved Mr Rochester’s reasoning’s heinous with the realisation of the ripped veil. The power in the conversation and relationship has shifted slightly and Mr Rochester looses some of the control. ‘A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was – must have been – Grace Poole.’ In this instant the Victorian values of the relationship between men and women are questioned, because it shows that the man is not always in the right. This is quickly covered up by a complete contradiction of his original story, from it all being in her head, to that there was a woman, but it was crazy Grace Poole and Jane who was ‘feverish, delirious’, ‘ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her stature.’ Again, he plays upon the ‘weakness and delicacy’ of women. ‘I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house; when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you.’ Rochester promises to tell her the truth in a year and a day--again Rochester regains power and control and he again thinks only of his needs and his desires. He knows with certainty that Jane would never agree to the arrangement he has planned, so he doesn't tell her. The relationship is once again in his power and of male dominance and the Victorian values are reinstated.
