Good God! What a cry!
Chapter 20 · Jane Eyre
Context
Jane is woken in the middle of the night by the full moon shining through her uncovered window. As she reaches to draw the curtain, a terrible cry rings through Thornfield Hall.
Analysis
The short, breathless exclamation breaks off Jane's lyrical description of the moonlight with violent abruptness—mimicking the shock of the scream itself. By giving us only her reaction and not yet the scream's content, Brontë makes the reader experience the disorientation Jane feels: we hear her fear before we know what caused it, which pulls us into her vulnerable position rather than letting us observe from a distance.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Brontë controls the reader's access to information in order to align us emotionally with Jane—we experience Gothic terror through her limited perspective, not through omniscient explanation.