Art As An Insight Into Jane Eyre's Life

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and her punishment for
striking Master John, the stay in the red room of Gateshead. In the
opening scene, Jane is found perusing a copy of Bewick's �History of
British Birds,� concentrating on the descriptions of the certain landscapes
in which some of the birds live. Her words paint a mental picture, one
that represents her childhood,

�Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all
the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but
strangely impressive. The words�gave significance to the rock standing up
alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a
desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud
at a wreck just sinking.�1
To Jane, these words mean more than simple seascapes and scenes,
to her they are symbols of the life she had lived until then. She was the
rock, standing alone not amidst a sea of billow and spray, but among an
ocean of hostility. The broken boat ...

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she describes her work:

�The first represented clouds�rolling over a swollen sea�One gleam of light
lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a [bird]�its beak
held a gold bracelet�Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse
glanced through the green water.� 2

This painting is meant to be compared to Jane's first images of the sinking
ship in the moonlight. The foil takes form in her description. A half
sunken ship in daylight with a partially visible corpse. Psychologically,
this could be Jane's subconscious imparting the sense of closure, that her
old self was �slipping beneath the waves� as the corpse, with the bird and
bracelet symbolizing her ability to ...

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