Jane Eyre Chapter 13 Essay

The extract in question is of great significance Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, it is a pivotal moment falling at the centre of the novel, Chapter 13 chronicles Mr Rochester's proposal and confession of love to Jane. The significant events of the remainder of the novel are directly caused by this scene. In specifics however, it is this passage's content that makes it particularly notable, here the power struggle between Jane and Rochester is exemplified as Jane’s inferior social standing and desire for freedom come into conflict with Rochester's upper class patriarchal authority and his desire to possess her.

The passage begins with a stream of uninterrupted dialogue from the protagonist. Contrastingly, the majority of the novel relays Jane's
This behavior is a repression of her wild natural impulses, a habit enforced by her time at Lowood academy. But in this instance, Janes reserve is obliterated. Bronte conveys Jane's anger towards both Mr Rochester and wider social injustices via speech filled with vitriolic exclamations and rhetorical questions. In this passage Jane is ‘at war with her lot’,Janes ambiguous dependant social standing and her plain appearance is well established. The protagonists lack of beauty or culturally admired attributes means that as a child not one member of the Reed household sympathised with her. This extract reveals Janes painful awareness of her shortcomings according to the social structure in which she is intrenched, she states that a man of wealth like Rochester could never love her as she was not gifted with ‘beauty and much wealth’. Jane believes that Rochester has chosen to wed her polar opposite, Miss Ingram. Bronte portrays Miss Ingram as the contemporary vision of an independently wealthy, beautiful woman, whose discourse and intelligence does not challenge the men around her. The author deconstructs this ideal woman by revealing her to be vapid and greedy whilst our heroine is ‘poor, obscure,plain’(Jane Eyre, p.292) but contains an