According to signology.org, the bird is said to “symbolize freedom”, as they are able to “soar the earth and sky.” The bird motif is used in Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, in order to convey how the restraints on human beings, in relation to the status quo, will remain until the day we decide to exercise our independent will. As Jane develops, her character changes in the terms of what she wants to become and who she really is.
We are first introduced to Jane’s interest in birds’ when she is a child, reading Bewick’s “History of British Birds”. Bronte uses this scene to relate Jane and the birds in the book as one. However, the birds are not her main focus, her attention lies on the bird’s locations. A reason for this is to associate an animal’s …show more content…
Jane begins to plan to leave Thornfield to start a new life away from Rochester and his upcoming wife. When she tells him of her beginning to stretch her wings to fly from his house, he grows distressed and states, “Jane, be still, don’t struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation,” (Bronte, 253). Rochester uses wild and frantic to depict a negative connotation to her desired freedom. Furthermore, he is attempting to submit Jane to not leave him and Thornfield by shutting down her thoughts and passions. In conclusion, Rochester had first displayed welcoming to her personality to expand, but as anger overtakes him, he displays a man to disagree with equal rights to women: showing his true intentions to only allow Jane to fly to his desires alone. For instance, the frantic, wild bird is a woman finding herself to be equal to men. In reply to his statement, Jane defends herself to be his equal, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will,” (Bronte, 253). If you combine her longing to become the bird and inherit their freedom with the quote of denying she is anything but human, she is making it crystal clear she is a woman with the freedoms that she desires. Charlotte Bronte uses Jane’s past as a way to introduce her mind in the future to the possibilities of what freedoms can bring to
We are first introduced to Jane’s interest in birds’ when she is a child, reading Bewick’s “History of British Birds”. Bronte uses this scene to relate Jane and the birds in the book as one. However, the birds are not her main focus, her attention lies on the bird’s locations. A reason for this is to associate an animal’s …show more content…
Jane begins to plan to leave Thornfield to start a new life away from Rochester and his upcoming wife. When she tells him of her beginning to stretch her wings to fly from his house, he grows distressed and states, “Jane, be still, don’t struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation,” (Bronte, 253). Rochester uses wild and frantic to depict a negative connotation to her desired freedom. Furthermore, he is attempting to submit Jane to not leave him and Thornfield by shutting down her thoughts and passions. In conclusion, Rochester had first displayed welcoming to her personality to expand, but as anger overtakes him, he displays a man to disagree with equal rights to women: showing his true intentions to only allow Jane to fly to his desires alone. For instance, the frantic, wild bird is a woman finding herself to be equal to men. In reply to his statement, Jane defends herself to be his equal, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will,” (Bronte, 253). If you combine her longing to become the bird and inherit their freedom with the quote of denying she is anything but human, she is making it crystal clear she is a woman with the freedoms that she desires. Charlotte Bronte uses Jane’s past as a way to introduce her mind in the future to the possibilities of what freedoms can bring to