Jane Eyre: Chapter 20 Summary & Analysis

That night, a scream rips through the midnight silence at Thornfield. All the guests run into the hallway, but Rochester calms everyone by saying that the noise came from a servant having a nightmare.

Once everyone has returned to bed, Rochester taps on Jane's bedroom door and asks for her help. They go up to Grace Poole's third floor room, where Mr. Mason lies bleeding from knife and bite wounds in his arm. They bandage him up and Rochester leaves to fetch a doctor, demanding that Jane and Mr. Mason not speak to each other while he's gone.

Jane is left alone in the dark with Mason. From Grace Poole's locked room down the hall emerge "canine" snarling sounds and human groans. Before dawn, Rochester returns with the surgeon. They sew up Mason and send him away before any of the guests wake.

Rochester takes Jane for a walk in the garden. He tells her about an obviously autobiographical story of a young man who got himself into serious trouble as a youth and then, to escape from that error, went on to lead a life of luxury and sinful excess. He asks, What if that man now wants to find redemption by living a good and moral life with a wife but is blocked from marrying her by the rules of society? Should he ignore those rules? Jane responds that the person should look not to any other person for redemption, but to God. Rochester then says that he will marry Blanche for his "regeneration," and changes the subject.