autonomy, identity and doubles in jane eyre

• jane eyre can be seen as a bildungsroman as details the moral and psychologica; growth of her charachters as she matures from a child to an adult

• janes personal identity is connected to others through her interactions and relationships, but she is perpetually trapped in this state as her restrictions come from those around her

• at end of novel jane is truly liberated when she deicdes to return to thornfield and accepts rochester as he is mained and blinded, that shee is truly liberated for she has established herself as her own person and has constructed her identity and has found love throughemotional growth

• janes development is not only hindered by the people around her but is also set in juxtaposition of Rochesters first wife. Both charachters are both described as mad and trapped at different times within the novel, and juxtaposition between them reveals they are oppositional doubles

• jane does not become like bertha- fully ensnared and insane because rochester loves and thus his love proves to be liberation jane so desperatley needs in her life: does not take into consideration Jane’s own actions to shape her identity.

• these scenes in the red-room establish Jane as both being envoloped with fear and isolation, but also firmly resolute in how she should be treated by others

• the red-room acts both as a physical representation of Jane’s stunted development snd insane potential and, as an emotional memory that inducesJane’s restoration and full maturation of her inner psyche and integrity

• Bronte declares that if Jane continued to be trapped and isolated, both by others and by her own fears, than she could have easily become like bertha

• juxtaposition of bertha and jane being both repelled and drawn by her suggests that jane related to bertha, both in her enormity but also in her being locked away

evidence

• bertha is described in the text as utterly monstrous: “wild beast” or a “strange wild animal”