How Does Bronte Emphasise Terror in Chapter 2?

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

How does Bronte emphasise Jane’s terror in chapter 2?

In chapter 2, Bronte uses many different techniques and elements of gothic novels to not only emphasis terror but to also add drama and suspense to the novel. in this essay, I will be exploring the different techniques.

In the very beginning of the chapter, Jane ‘resists all the way’ to avoid going in the red room. This shows us that Jane is a rebellious girl and has been since the beginning rather than behaving as a respectful victorian girl. It also implies that red room holds rather dark and mysterious elements.

Bronte uses an oxymoron to describe the red room as a ‘square chamber’, as the word ‘chamber’ suggests something luxurious and extravagant but the word ‘square’ hints something very rigid and probably claustrophobic. Furthermore, the furniture in the red room is portrayed to be ‘one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion’, with ‘massive pillars of mahogany’, ‘two large windows’.This might add to Jane feeling small and insignificant as everything is bigger than her and would seem quite intimidating to a ten year old girl especially one who is already scared and is being tortured frequently. Most importantly it makes Jane feel trapped and imprisoned. She says ‘no jail was ever more secure’ which clearly suggests that she feels like a prisoner and an outsider in Gateshed mansion. This is a emphasises terror as abandoned places, secret room and the feeling of claustrophobia- trapped foreshadows something that might happen later on and makes the atmosphere very tense.

Another way terror was emphasised in chapter 2 was the way Bronte used of colour as symbolism to express Jane’s feelings and the situation, for example, the colour red is used quite a few times; ‘red carpet’, ‘deep red’ ,’crimson cloth’ and ‘the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink’. The use of colour red and the different shades of it may represent the violence that...