Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Dark vs. Light

I know I mentioned this in 6th period, but I feel like the point is so interesting that I must share it. Within this novel are tons of references to fire and ice and are frequently referred to for dramatic effect in terms of passion. However, I found that whether the room or location is light or dark also serves as a plot point. Before page 174 there was a definitive abscence of light and that was Jane's sanctuary. In fact, she always seemed to keep to the shade when she first dealt with Rochester's sudden appearance. However, Rochester in turn seemed to always want Jane to be in the light, as every conversation he "controlled" was near a fire. All this had been preceding the incident where Mr. Rochester's bed caught on fire which was the pivotal point in the "danger" of both light and dark. It switched many times throughout the scene and finally I was able to see the shift from dark being Jane's sanctuary to light being it. Now this is a bit of a stretch, but if you examine the scenes closely that precede the bed and the bed scene itself I think you will agree with me.

3 comments:

vicmaj said...

I agree with you. One thing I noticed is that Bronte uses at least one light or dark word to describe most of the objects and people in the novel. These references usually give character information, like friendly or cruel.

Anonymous said...

Good I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who saw stuff like that

David Lavender said...

Victor's right: the observations here are astute. However, I'm way behind on responding to these posts (I've already commented on a more recent one), so I'll simply await your reaction to events yet to unfold.