There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon.
Chapter 17 · Narrator
Context
The eight ladies enter the drawing room where Jane and Adèle are waiting. Jane observes their grand entrance and the visual effect they create as a group.
Analysis
The simile comparing the ladies' 'sweeping amplitude of array' to mist magnifying the moon does two things at once: it grants them a kind of atmospheric grandeur, but it also suggests illusory enlargement—they appear larger than they are because of what surrounds them, not what they contain. The image of mist is ethereal but also obscuring, hinting that their finery conceals rather than reveals. Jane sees them clearly enough to recognize the artifice, even as she is dazzled by it.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Jane's observations expose the constructed nature of upper-class femininity—her simile reveals that aristocratic elegance is an effect produced by costume and staging, not an expression of inherent worth, a recognition that insulates her from being fully seduced by their world.