The general use of imagery requires mention. Imagery can also be used to represent underlying themes of the novel, or to provide dramatic effect and mood. In ‘Jane Eyre’, the colour red has a strong metaphorical significance, representing passion, sexual desire and the heat of emotion and feeling. Fire, which is well associated with the colour red, can provide warmth and comfort, but can also burn. Fire imagery is used by Bronte to develop Jane's character throughout the novel. As the novel progresses, the corresponding imagery changes to show different aspects of Jane's character. We see Jane's overly passionate nature through her punishment at Gateshead. She is unable to control her passions and strikes John Reed when he physically bullied her by grasping her hair and shoulders. As her punishment, Jane is locked up in the red-room. The colour red is significant here, red, the colour of fire and heat, represents passion and fury, as fire embodies this. Here, fire imagery, in the form of the red-room with its pillars of mahogany" and "curtains of deep red damask", is used to represent, through physical manifestation, Jane's overly passionate nature.
Charlotte Bronte addresses the theme of Religion in the novel, using many characters as symbols. Bronte states, 'Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion'. In Jane Eyre, Bronte supports the theme that customary actions are not always moral through the conventional personalities of Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and St. John Rivers. This is a view that Bronte also adapts Jane to, Jane's moral code is conventional, but it is not rigid. She does not approve of Rochester's lustful past or his marriage to Bertha, but she does not completely cut him out of her life. Jane does not shun conventional morality, but she manages to question the oppression on both her gender and her social class. As she does so, Jane exhibits a mature sense of morality.
Bronte also questions the ideals of women in the Victorian era, which caused a great deal of controversy, especially due to the fact that the heroin herself was the one to break the conventional ideal of being a woman. In essence, Bronte's novel became a direct assault on Victorian morality. Emotions any respectable girl would repress. Women at this time were not to feel passion, nor were they considered sexual beings. Jane Eyre sent controversy through the literary community. For not only was it written by a woman but marked the first use of realistic characters. Yet its most scandalous aspect was its open treatment of love. Bronte's choice of a strong independent heroine depicted feminist ideals that would later lead to the overhaul of Victorian culture. By making Jane an educated woman, Bronte gave her empowerment that denied women education. However, Jane became a woman who demanded a say in her own destiny. As if she can not preserve her individuality, she ‘shall not be ... Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin’s jacket.’ With her refusal to become Rochester's mistress, she demonstrates her inner strength. Essentially Jane has sacrificed nothing, rather gaining a loving marriage in which they are equals. ‘We stood at God's feet, equals as we are!’ Bronte attempts to dispel the notion of women being emotionally unstable. Ultimately, Jane Eyre presented for the readers of that time new insight into relationships of the 19th century. Jane's belief that "marriage without love is sacrilege" and should be based on the "mutual respect of two people entirely compatible" was quite a radical concept for the time. Ultimately, this novel spread a message of the new role of the woman.
Views of woman were not the only issue Bronte challenged in this novel, the ideal Victorian child was also contradicted with young Jane, that showed many qualities of old Jane that were highly frowned upon at the time. As a little girl, Jane often acted upon deeply irrational and on emotional impulses. Helen, a schoolmate, tells Jane: ‘Hush Jane! You think too much of the love of human beings, you are too impulsive, too vehement.’ Jane soon learnt that emotions, rashness, and imaginative fancies were considered as faults by society, which was also though by the readers from the era ‘Jane Eyre’ was released. She learned that such tendencies must be erased or at least repressed. Jane Eyre soon became the model governess. But this mundane existence was not enough for the hidden romantic longings locked deep in her soul. Although Lowood gave Jane the virtues expected by society, the same place was suffocating to Jane’s spirit who needed more than moral primness. The oppression she felt on her soul caused Jane to leave Lowood in search of freedom.
Victorian children at the time were ‘seen and not heard’, which meant they were heavily restricted into an ideal which was enforced by any means necessary. While Blake and Wordsworth celebrated the divinity associated with innocence the Victorian novelists sometimes saw children to have been sent to repent the sins of their parents. In literature alike Jane Eyre, children are rarely heard and this notion on children having no voice and view grew into an ideal. Bronte however shows Jane to be a great deal different; she answers back at John and defends herself on the grounds of fairness. We know of Jane’s passion as an adult, but it is shown as a child as well. Bronte creates Jane with such passion, that Jane is unable to stay silent. On the day Miss Temple is married, this idea is expressed when Jane states, ‘I was left in my natural element; and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions’. That natural element is fire, and the stirring of emotions are what Jane feels inside. These feelings are reminiscent of her days at the Reeds, when Jane suffered through a punishment and was told by Bessie not to cry. Jane replies with, "she might as well have said to the fire, 'don’t burn!’ Fire is symbol used repetitively throughout the novel and has almost become a motif, reminding us of the passion that Jane is represented with. This emotion, passion, enables Jane to break through the conventional Victorian ideals of women and children, allowing Bronte to educate the audience on her controversial and realistic views on childhood.
