Jane Eyre Thornfield Hall Essay

In Jane Eyre Bronte uses descriptions of the inside of Thornfield Hall to create a Gothic atmosphere in which Jane feels uncomfortable. The isolation and large uninhabited spaces of the manor remove it from the outside world. Strange entities and details as well as metaphor make the house seem unknown and plagued with the supernatural. It becomes a place stopped in time and detached from reality, in a way Thornfield Hall comes to represent Jane’s life.
The first device Emily Bronte uses is a portrayal of the sense of large, cavernous rooms, mostly uninhabited. The first feeling we get of this is Jane moving to her room from the entrance, she walks up the ‘oak’ stairs and into ‘the long gallery’, it reminds her of the hollow vacancy of ‘a church’, using the description of ‘vault-like’. Thornfield is full of ‘wide halls, dark and spacious staircases and long cold galleries’ this makes it a lonely place with no sense of warmth. Later in the chapter and further into Thornfield there are more ‘long passages’ and ‘lofty ceilings’. Bronte then repeats the description of vault-like spaces, ‘the drawing room yonder feels like a vault’. Noticing the ‘pair of globes’ in the library she creates a feeling of endless space. ‘The large front rooms, I thought especially grand’ seem to create a barrier of
These rooms, ‘dark and low’ and with an ‘imperfect light’ all are characteristics of the Gothic scene. She depicts many more images with direct connotations of ghostliness: ‘gloom... gleam of moonlight... coffin-dust... half-effaced embroideries’. Bronte creates a feeling of morbidity and ethereality. This attic in which all the old furniture is placed becomes a surreal portal, a freeze frame of time, ‘a shrine of memory’. She creates the perfect setting in this attic for the otherworldly events that take place in Thornfield throughout the rest of the