Gothic Elements

Charlotte Bronte uses elements from Gothic novels in Jane Eyre. These novels were popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. The novels are characterized by medieval settings, supernatural events, mysterious characters, and an atmosphere of impending danger.

Jane lived in three homes so far in the novel, Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield Hall. Gateshead did not have much of a medieval feeling to it. After Jane arrived to Lowood I think that setting compared to Gateshead gave off more of a medieval feeling. It was very dreary when Jane first came to Lowood, it was cold and rainy. The Lowood school is a charity school for orphan girls, the girls would have to all wearing drab rough uniforms. On her first day, Jane witnesses the strict routine,teachers order the girls around in formation, students share beds in long dormitories. As for Thornfield when Jane arrived she described it as “She ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me. Contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured”. Jane found Thornfield to be very cosy when she first went in.

So far in this novel Jane has come across many strange happenings in Thornfield Hall. Mr. Rodchester has always seemed a bit mysterious in my eyes, from when Jane first met him up until their marriage ceremony. He has definitely been keeping a secret from Jane. Other than Mr. Rodchester there is Grace Poole. Jane has always seen Grace as a bit odd, with her strange laugh and how she lives up on the mysterious third floor all alone. As for supernatural events, the first time Jane encountered a supernatural and mysterious event was when in the dead of night she had heard “this..demoniac laugh- low, suppressed, and deep - uttered, as it seemed, at the very key-hole of my chamber-door”(pg 168). Jane was frightened to say the least, she thought the laugh sounded familiar and thought “ ‘Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with the devil?’ “(pg 168). Jane left her room to find that Mr. Rodchester’s room was engulfed in flames. “Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of the blaze and vapour, Mr. Rodchester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep” (168) after Jane doused the flames with water Rodchester went to go find Grace. After the fortune telling in the middle of the night there was yelling,Jane listened “ And overhead - yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling - I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted -- ‘Help! help! help!’ three times rapidly. ‘Will no one come’ it cried; and then, while the staggering and the stamping went on wildly….”(pg 232 ch 20). After that fit of screaming out in pain Mr. Rodchester got Jane and brought her up to where the yellining was coming from. “Mr. Rodchester held the candle over him; I recognized in his pale and seemingly lifeless face - the stranger, Mason. I saw too that his linen on one side , and one arm, was almost soaked in blood”(235-236). Jane was left with this mysterious man Mason and he was bleeding from his arm, Mr. Rodchester went to retrieve a Doctor to sew up Mason’s wounds. Then it was revealed that Grace Poole was the one who had injured Mason, she came after him with a knife and bit him and tried to suck his blood;  ‘She bit me,’ he murmured. ‘ She worried, me like a tigress, when Rodchester got the knife from her’”(239).

The only type of impending danger Jane was ever in was the night before her wedding. She was all alone in her room, at first she thought she was dreaming when she saw a figure with thick black hair enter her room. Thinking it was Sophie she called out her name only to find red eyes looking back at her and awful purple lips. This figure was observing her wedding attire, particularly the veil. The woman ripped Jane’s veil down the middle and threw it to the ground. The figure did nothing more than that, it did not hurt Jane. But, Jane compared the mysterious women to a vampire.