Fire and Water Imagery in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre Essay -- Jane E

levy and Water Imagery in Jane Eyre In Jane Eyre, the use of piddle and call forth imaginativeness is very much related to the character and/or humor of the protagonists (i.e. Jane and Rochester, and to a certain extent St. John Rivers) -- and it to a fault serves to sight Jane in a sort of intermediate position between the two men. However, it should also be noted that the characteristics attributed to fire and water have alternately peremptory and negative implications -- to cite an example among many, near the beginning of the novel, reference is do to the devastating effects of water (ceaseless rain sweeping extraneous wildly, death-white realm i.e. of snow), and fire is represented by a repellent red glare later, fire is represented as being console in Miss Temples room, and it is water that saves Rochester from the first gear fire. These literal associations with fire and water become more and more symbolic, however, as the novel progresses, where the fire / water / (ice) imagery becomes a representation of the emotional and moral dialectic of the characters, and it also becomes increasingly evident that the positive and negative potentialities of fire and water also show the positive and negative potentialities of the characters whom they represent. Rochester is very much associated with fire, with the strange fires in his go steady, and particularly with his flaming and flashing eyes. By extension, so is everything associated with him (i.e. his first wife and Thornfield). Janes first reaction to Thornfield itself, destined to fall victim to fire, is to be dazzled by the double illumination of fire and candle, honest as she is later to be dazzled by the fire of Rochester himself. On one level, this fire is the Romantic fir... ...Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. freshly York Dodd, Mead & Company, 1991 David Lodge, Fire and Eyre Charlotte Bronts War of earthbound Elements Gates, Barbara Timm, ed. Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte. Boston G. K. Hall, 1990. Jane Eyre. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsborough, and Anna Paquin. 1996 Kadish, Doris. The Literature of Images Narrative Landscape from Julie to Jane Eyre. New Brunswick Rutgers UP, 1986.Lodge, Scott. Fire and Eyre Charlotte Brontes War of Earthly Elements. The Brontes A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Ian Gregor. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice Hall, 1970. 110-36.McLaughlin, M.B. Past or Future Mindscapes Pictures in Jane Eyre. Victorian newsletter 41 (1972) 22-24.Solomon, Eric. Jane Eyre Fire and Water. College English 25 (1964) 215-217.