It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you, for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed.
Chapter 37 · Jane Eyre
Context
Jane teases Rochester about his unkempt appearance, comparing him to biblical king Nebuchadnezzar, who was exiled and lived like a beast.
Analysis
Jane's mock-diagnostic tone—'it is time someone undertook to rehumanise you'—treats Rochester's decline as a project she can manage, reframing his suffering as fixable rather than tragic. The Nebuchadnezzar allusion is blunt: that king was punished with madness and animalization for pride, and Jane names the parallel out loud. But her lightness ('or something of that sort') refuses to let the allusion become heavy—she's diagnosing but also flirting, using humor to disarm what could be a painful truth.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Jane uses teasing and biblical analogy to assert interpretive control over Rochester's condition—she gets to name what has happened to him and, by extension, to decide what comes next, claiming authority that would have been his in their earlier dynamic.