Jane Eyre - Fire & Water

Write an essay on Bronte's use of water and fire imagery.

The use of elemental imagery in Jane Eyre, sustained throughout the novel both metaphorically and literally, is one of Charlotte Brontë's major stylistic devices. The natural opposition of the two elements of water and fire ("the war of the earthly elements", as Jane puts it) highlights the need for the titular heroine to find equilibrium between points identified as extremes. However, as David Lodge notes, "we should be mistaken in looking for a rigidly schematic system of elemental imagery and reference in Jane Eyre". Fire and water images in the novel have their shifting associations, which reflect on the characters of Jane, Rochester and St John Rivers. The broad suitability of the images shows that they can be both destructive forces and agents of renewal. Using them as both allows Brontë to show how far the characters have learnt to reconcile the Romantic desire for passion with the need for restraint, for it is only in that way that true personal selfhood can be realised. And this search for a personal selfhood, where one is judged on one's own character, not society's usual manner of judgment based on title, money or beauty, can be said to be the focus in the novel.

It is instructive to note that fire, used metaphorically, is almost solely used to describe Jane and Rochester. Fire is associated with passion, and it is imperative for the characters to learn that while passion is a valuable quality, without which any relationship would be a cold and dead one, it is not the only component of a relationship; other qualities like mutual respect and honesty must be present. "Fire is a good servant, but a bad master", as the old saying goes. The fire within both parties creates the possibility of a fulfilling relationship of the heart (not one dominated by reason, as offered by St John Rivers), but it also points to attendant dangers, and the potential for mutual destruction. So Jane and Rochester must learn to control their passions if they are to attain a true form of self-fulfilment. This is particularly so for Jane, who is of a low social position (being an orphan, without money, and of the wrong gender in a chauvinist society). If she follows her desires and marries Rochester on his first request, she would be his "mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical", as she realises. This would entail losing the one thing she does possess: strength of character.

Jane is, by nature, passionate, and will not allow injustice to prevail. This is established from the outset by her behaviour at Gateshead Hall, for example her fight with John Reed. Mrs Reed comments that "you are passionate, Jane, that you must allows", and she does not deny it. She learns the exhilaration of releasing this passion, too, when she bursts out at Mrs Reed ("You are deceitful"). All this is highlighted in Jane's chosen metaphor, based tellingly on fire, to describe her outburst -- "A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs Reed".

But that same passage also shows the dangers of passion. "The same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead would have represented my subsequent condition" i.e. her feelings after realising "the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position". Jane must, to achieve maturity, rein in her emotions. This is where Rochester poses a threat. By stirring her emotional desires, Rochester is in effect enticing her into releasing the fire that is within her, which carries the danger, all too possible, of causing her to compromise her integrity. He recognises her passion, calling her a "soul of fire", and commenting that he has "seen what a fire-spirit (Jane) can be" for the first time that passion is appreciated not just by herself (as was the case in her sense of victory after accusing Mrs Reed), but by someone else. In doing so, he almost causes her to become consumed by emotions ("I was forgetting all his faults", as Jane says, and later she refers to him as her "idol"), blinding her to the fact that he is not totally open and honest with her. It takes the crisis of the cancellation of the marriage, owing to the revelation of the existence of his first wife Bertha Mason, to force Jane to evaluate her life ("Now, I thought", emphasis Brontë's).

Significantly, Rochester, when he attempts to persuade Jane to be his wife despite the revelation that he is already married, is depicted using fire images ("He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance", "forth flashed the fire from his eyes"). Wanting to do so is in effect saying that he should not need to compromise anything and can be freed of any responsibility to his first wife, simply because of her lunatic nature. This is selfish, and we see how if Jane gave in at this point, she would lose her self-respect. Thus she must leave Thornfield.

Brontë unites the metaphorical use of fire with a literal employment of the image. Perhaps because so much of the language of the novel is related to fire-images, one pay closer attention to the literal ones; in this way attention is called the the conflagrations started by Bertha, as well as to the liberal descriptions of fireside conversations. The fires started by Bertha Mason help delineate Rochester's character. In his contrasting reactions to them, we see Rochester's progression towards realising his responsibility, which shows that he has made the change necessary to create a union. The first fire, which Jane rescues Rochester from, should signal to Rochester the problems in his flirtatious behaviour towards the governess. He has not been open with her, and without openness the relationship must necessarily be of a more shallo nature. Instead, however, Rochester continues his pursuit of Jane without any regard for his responsibility. And this, as Jane accurately points out is not "real affection" but "fitful passion".

Fire becomes, however, the force that releases Rochester in the end. Bertha's second fire is destructive, intending to destroy the Rochester family, its wealth and its history. In attempting to save his wife, and becoming maimed in the process, we have a clear indication of the responsibility to his wife that Rochester has developed, and his selflessness. Acknowledging the madwoman in the attic psychologically frees his mind, allowing Rochester to discover true fulfilment. Rochester has thus turned the destructive fire into a purifying one. Physically, the burning of Thornfield also serves to destroy the false relationship of Jane and Rochester that was created there, clearing the ground for a future relationship that is more equal.

Fire is perhaps the strongest mataphor in the novel, but it is always contrasted with water, and water's extreme, ice. In the elemental scheme, air lies between fire and water; likewise, this Eyre must find her equilibrium point between the two. Jane is drawn to water and ice, as seen in her poring over the pictures of arctic regions in Bewick's History of British Birds and in the fact that all three of her paintings -- which come from her imagination and are consequently psychologically revealing -- either depict water (the first presents a half-submerged mast, the third an iceberg in a polar sky), or are described using water imagery (the woman in the second is painted "as through the suffusion of vapour"). But like fire, water poses the danger of overcoming her, and Jane must guar against overreacting to the disappointment caused by her passion.

Water imagery, in the Thornfield portion of the text, mirrors Jane's movement from the awakening of her desire to Rochester to the realisation of her foolishness. Jane uses water to put out the fire set by Bertha, and in in doing so, causes the stirrings of the relationship. At that point, she describes herself as being "tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy". After the revelation of Rochester's marriage, more a bracing cold shower than a refreshing bath, the sustained use of water images (to select a small sample: "A Christmas frost had come at midsummer", "I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come", "the floods overflowed me") depicts Jane's despair. This shows the consequences of Jane's actions in allowing herself to be swept up by her love for Rochester.

St John Rivers represents the opposite extreme from Rochester. Where Rochester is a man of fire, St John is one of ice. "I am cold: no fervour infects me", as St John himself admits. St John, up to his name, is described using images of water and earth -- the cold elements which are the antithesis of fire. Returning from his enquiries, he enters with his cloak "all white as a glacier". The consistent use of this imagery suggests Jane's emotional distance from St John, which removes any possible reason for marriage, Jane having come into money during her stay at Moor's End.

Jane cannot accept the proposal of marriage, despite the temptations it offers. Rochester says that Jane will become "ice and rock" after hearing of his first marriage; St John presents the danger that she will actually give in to becoming this extreme and deny her true self. The water imagery highlights the temptation of self-denial: "I was tempted to cease struggling with him -- to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own". But, as Jane says, "to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment". Marriage would kill any expression of her self. Rochester's call, like her mother's call earlier, is a supernatural indication of the disturbance that her heart feels at the possibility of accepting such a destructive option.

This study is necessarily limited; much has not been mentioned but this is unsurprising given the almost persistent centring of the novel's imagery on the elements and their opposition to each other. But it is hopefully clear that Brontë employs the fire and water imagery in order to present character, and to impress upon us the need of Jane to find the balance point between the extremes. Jane has nothing beyond her character; thus she must preserve her sense of self. In encountering the extremes of fire and water, she learns to unify the opposing elements in her life, and can arrive at the comfortable existence she experiences at Ferndean. The warmth of the domestic hearth -- i.e. controlled fire -- is the final use of fire at the end (Jane meets Rochester leaning over "a neglected handful of fire"), and hows Jane's success in the unity of the warring elements. Brontë also uses fire-images in depicting Rochester, and in this we see how Rochester learns his responsibilities. So water and fire images are not employed solely for the melodramatic effects of pathetic fallacy, but for Brontë's relentless pursuit of the importance of preserving the self and the spirit.

Bibliography

Mark Kinkead-Weekes, The Place of Love in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

David Lodge, Fire and Eyre: Charlotte Brontë's War of Earthly Elements

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Fire & Water

Write an essay on Bronte's use of water and fire imagery.
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