Jane Eyre
Prompt #19 · Jane Eyre
Prompt Type: Symbol/Motif
Bertha's laughter and other disturbing sounds echo through Thornfield, creating an atmosphere of mystery and threat. Analyze how Brontë uses these auditory elements to symbolize repressed truths and hidden aspects of Rochester's past. Explain how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Quote 1
“This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door.”
Chapter 15
Argument
This early auditory encounter with Bertha's laughter establishes the symbol's core function: the 'demoniac laugh' at Jane's chamber door represents the proximity of Rochester's hidden truth, with the 'low, suppressed, and deep' quality suggesting secrets deliberately contained but threatening to emerge.
Quote 2
“The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.”
Chapter 20
Argument
The violent sound that 'rent in twain' the night's silence during Mason's attack demonstrates the symbol's evolution into active disruption, as Bertha's cries literally shatter Thornfield's facade of order and force the repressed past into audible, undeniable presence.
Quote 3
“While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless.”
Chapter 11
Argument
Jane's first encounter with the 'curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless' introduces the auditory symbol as something unnatural and out of place in Thornfield's 'still region,' establishing the laugh as an intrusion of hidden truth into the house's carefully maintained atmosphere.
Quote 4
Chapter 20
Argument
Rochester's metaphor of living 'on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day' directly connects to the auditory symbol by revealing his conscious awareness that his hidden past threatens violent eruption—the same explosive force that manifests in Bertha's shrieks and laughter that 'rent in twain' Thornfield's silence.