Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.
Chapter 7 · Narrator
Context
After Mr. Brocklehurst lectures Miss Temple on not indulging the students, the narrator describes Miss Temple's reaction as she listens silently to his speech about deprivation being spiritually beneficial.
Analysis
Brontë extends the marble comparison across three stages—'pale as marble,' then assuming its 'coldness and fixity,' then requiring a 'sculptor's chisel' to open her mouth—so that Miss Temple doesn't just resemble stone, she actively transforms into it before our eyes. This progression traps her rage in geological time; she can't speak back, so her face fossilizes instead. The petrification imagery captures a specifically female predicament: expression driven inward until it hardens into silence.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Brontë uses extended metaphor to visualize the cost of female compliance—Miss Temple's face turning literally to stone dramatizes what happens when women are forced to swallow their objections, making her silence feel like a kind of death.