Painting Analysis in Jane Eyre

Drawing a Breath of Fresh Eyre From the opening chapter of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre the reader becomes aware of the powerful role that art plays. There is something extraordinary about the pictures Jane admires from other artists, as well as the work she creates herself. Her solitary pastime often operates as an outlet of pain, either past or present, and offers her the opportunity to deal with unpleasant emotions and memories. Jane’s art transcends her isolation by bringing her into contact with others who see it; it functions as a bridge between her desire to be alone and her need for companionship. Despite her struggles with inner conflict and the people in her life, Jane’s art helps her find personal power, marking her true identity as her own woman. Whether it is her love of drawings or the creations of her own, artwork has provide Jane a means of agency to survive the harrowing conditions afforded to the orphan child, allowing her to emerge as a wealthy, independent social equal. The first glimpse of Jane’s resourcefulness and mental escape comes from one of the first activities in the novel. She escapes from her powerless place in the hostile Reed household temporarily through a book “taking care that it should be one stored with pictures” (2). She retreats to a solitary window-seat, “having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close... shrined in double retirement,” and buries herself in Berwick’s A History of British Birds (2). The window offered protection, but not separation from the outside: “At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon” (2). Through the images and quotes contained therein, Jane manages to acquire the only kind of power to she access to- knowledge, “Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting” (3). Her interpretation of the illustrations provides training for the young girl,

Cited: Azim, Firdous. “Rereading Feminism’s Texts in Jane Eyre and Shirley.” The Colonial Rise of the Novel: From Aphra Behn to Charlotte Brontë. London: Routledge, 1993. Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc, 2001. Cassell, Cara Diss. Georgia State University, 2001. Gates, Barbara Gilbert, Sandra. “Plain Jane’s Progress.” Signs, Vol.2 (1977): 779-804. Kromm, Jane. “Visual Culture and Scopic Custom in Jane Eyre and Villette.” Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 26 (1998): 369-394. Losano, Antonia. The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2008. Marcus, Sharon PMLA, Vol.110 (1995): 206-219 Millgate, Jane Newman, Beth. “Excepts from Subjects on Display.” Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: A Case Book. Ed. Elsie Browning Michie. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2006. Starzyk, Lawrence. “The Gallery of Memory”: The Pictorial in Jane Eyre.” Papers on Language and Literature, Vol.33 (1997): 288-307.