"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him.
Chapter 15 · Narrator
Context
Jane tries to wake Rochester as the fire spreads around him. He does not immediately respond.
Analysis
The repeated imperative 'Wake! wake!' conveys Jane's urgency through exclamation and repetition, but the sentence's structure keeps her action in the foreground—'I cried,' 'I shook him'—while Rochester remains grammatically passive ('he only murmured'). The detail that 'the smoke had stupefied him' explains his helplessness physiologically, but it also continues the symbolic work: Rochester is unconscious to the danger Bertha represents, just as he has been unconscious to the moral wrong of hiding her.
Essay Tip
Use this to support a thesis that Rochester's literal unconsciousness during the fire mirrors his moral unconsciousness throughout the Thornfield plot—he sleeps through the consequences of his choices until Jane forces him to wake, which is what she will do again when she discovers Bertha's existence.