Jane Eyre - Nature

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of Jane's relationship with Rochester that keeps Jane afloat at her time of crisis in the heath: "Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living."
Another recurrent image is Bront�'s treatment of Birds. We first witness Jane's fascination when she reads Bewick's History of British Birds as a child. She reads of "death-white realms" and "'the solitary rocks and promontories'" of sea-fowl. We quickly see how Jane identifies with the bird. For her it is a form of escape, the idea of flying above the toils of every day life. Several times the narrator talks of feeding birds crumbs. Perhaps Bront� is telling us that this idea of escape is no more than a fantasy -- one cannot escape when one must return for basic sustenance. The link between Jane and birds is strengthened by the way Bront� adumbrates poor nutrition at Lowood through a bird who is described as "a little hungry robin."
Bront� brings the buoyant sea theme and the bird ...

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After only taking a small parcel with her from Thornfield, she leaves even that in the coach she rents. Gone are all references to Rochester, or even her past life. A "sensible" heroine might have gone to find her uncle, but Jane needed to leave her old life behind.

Jane is seeking a return to the womb of mother nature: "I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask repose." We see how she seeks protection as she searches for a resting place: "I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in ...

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