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Chapter 24
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Jane Eyre, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Family, and Independence
Social Class and Social Rules
Gender Roles
Religion
Feeling vs. Judgment
The Spiritual and the Supernatural
Summary
Analysis
The wedding day approaches and everything is packed for a honeymoon to Europe. While Rochester is briefly away on business, Jane wanders outside to see the lightning-blasted chestnut tree.
Jane's visit to the split tree shows that subconsciously she knows there is something wrong with this marriage even before she learns about Bertha.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
When Rochester returns the next day, the day before the wedding, Jane tells him of the strange things that happened while he was away. First, she dreamed about being alone on a long, empty road with a pitiful crying child. In a second dream, she was waiting for Rochester at a ruined Thornfield with the same child, but tripped and dropped the child.
Jane's dreams suggest the distance she still feels from Rochester. The suffering child symbolizes an unhealthy future for their marriage. The decaying Thornfield foreshadows its actual destruction and represents the mess of Rochester's life.
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
This second dream startled Jane awake, and in the darkness of her room she saw a strange woman with wild hair and a discolored "savage" face going through her closet. The woman put on the wedding veil Rochester had bought for Jane, then tore it in half and stomped on it. Rochester dismisses the story as just another dream, then says that the woman must have been Grace Poole. Finally, he promises to explain everything a year and a day into their marriage.
Bertha appears as a terrifying image of a bride, which parallels Jane's anxieties about her marriage. The ripped veil, like the split tree, represents how Jane's wedding will be broken up. Instead of telling Jane the truth, Rochester delays his confession—an ominous start to a marriage based on equality.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
Jane spends the night cradling Adèle in the nursery behind a bolted door. She cries when leaving Adèle in the morning.
As an independent tutor, Adèle represents the life that Jane is leaving behind.
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
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