Gothic Atmosphere in Jane Eyre’s Thornfield Hall

empty house by describing things that she does not find familiar.

‘No dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily’, typical for Jane would be to see dust in uninhabited rooms and for there to be coverings for the furniture yet in Thornfield everything is immaculate. Her only complaint is of the chilly air, this lacks a tangibility felt in normal houses, and it is something that can’t be changed without the curious energy of humans.In this description she also speaks of receiving the impression that the rooms feel as if they are also ‘inhabited daily’, this draws connotations of ghosts and haunting, notably she uses ‘inhabited’ potentially a very inhuman word, rather than ‘lived in’. The description of the third storey in stark contrast to the rest of the house describes a space of paranormal feelings.

These rooms, ‘dark and low’ and with an ‘imperfect light’ all are characteristics of the Gothic scene. She depicts many more images with direct connotations of ghostliness: ‘gloom...

leam of moonlight... coffin-dust...

half-effaced embroideries’. Bronte creates a feeling of morbidity and ethereality. This attic in which all the old furniture is placed becomes a surreal portal, a freeze frame of time, ‘a shrine of memory’. She creates the perfect setting in this attic for the otherworldly events that take place in Thornfield throughout the rest of the book.

Bronte also describes things foreign and strange which adds to the sense of the unknown and gives Thornfield timelessness and a lack of physical location.In the attic there are unnerving ‘effigies of strange flowers, stranger birds, and strangest human beings’. She

also references the decoration to that of the ‘Hebrew ark’, these esoteric symbols decorated the ark which contained the presence of God, this reference could represent two things, firstly that if god is replaced by a sense of the supernatural, an ark of ghosts rather than holiness. Secondly it could show the removal of this symbol of God into the attic leaving the house out of the watch of God.

Jane draws on the descriptions of churches more than once in this chapter, ‘looked as if they belonged to a church’ and before she goes to bed she kneels down to pray, almost turning it into one. The long passages and staircases also remind the reader of the dark transepts of a church. The cold rock and air as well as lofty ceilings also mirror the uninviting Gothic atmosphere of a church. Later Jane notices ‘stained glass’ in the apartment This objective strange feeling is evident when Jane is looking at the pictures in the hall.

They seem to be pictures of past inhabitants of the house and thus become very ghostlike. One shows ‘a grim man in a cuirass’ (a military breastplate). The other ‘a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace’ this would make her completely pale as a ghost would be. When seeing the dining room Jane notices the ‘Tyrian-dyed curtains’, ‘crimson couches and ottomans’ and ‘ruby red bohemian glass’. This reminds us of the Red Room at Gateshead it is similarly grand, the Red Room being the only grand room at Gateshead.At Gateshead the Red Room feels spare and unlived in unlike the rest of the rooms there; however the red room

feels lived in and warm differing from the other rooms.

The red at Gateshead represents Jane’s anger and frustration inherent with the violence there. At Thornton this red shows warmth and luxury. Another device Bronte uses to make Thornfield a stagnant and dangerous seeming place is by keeping all the doors locked and by having people always locking and unlocking doors. She transforms the house into a prison.

After leaving the first room ‘the hall door was fastened’, the staircase and windows are ‘latticed’ similar to prison bars, repetition of the word ‘vault’ also illustrates the idea of a prison cell and being locked up. Even the books in the library ‘were locked up behind glass doors’ and the trapdoor in the attick needs to be ‘fastened’. The first thing Jane does after going into her room is immediately locks her door ‘I had fastened my door’. This repeated shutting of doors gives the impression that Thornton is full of dangerous things that must be kept out of the rooms.Jane likes her room she says it is ‘livelier’ and calls it her ‘safe-haven’. Thus her room becomes her space within the house where she can be alone and feel removed from the insecurity of the rest of Thornton.

By describing the securing of all the doors the sense of fragmentation and division in the house is emphasised. This leaves us feeling that there is no flow of energy in the house, and there is an eerie sense of stillness in the rooms just as Nightingale says ‘uninhabited rooms were never sunned, or cleaned, or aired... eservoirs of foul air’, most importantly he describes the ‘windows were

always tight shut’ which is what creates this sense of motionless, stagnant air. Bronte successfully creates a Gothic atmosphere where both Jane and the reader feel uncomfortable.

She uses a selection of repeated ideas to create a place where the air feels foul and sickly, the house feels morbid and directly represents Nightingales analysis of a family ‘degenerating’ leaving Rochester as the only remaining member of his family.