There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner– something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were–she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.
“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”
A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.
Jane Eyre’s ‘I’/eye is resolutely independent and reflective when we first meet her at the beginning of her ‘autobiography’ . The relief at the non-event (walking) is intriguing as Jane seems a protagonist who does not relish conformity and prefers seclusion to inclusion. The accumulative effect of Jane’s disclosures to us(as readers) creates an intimacy which persists.
The word ‘clustered’ carries pathos yet irony, suggestive of Jane’s exclusion from the heart of the family whilst also adding irony as appearances are deceptive, as the ‘family’ are selfish and without real care of each other at all. Thus the Victorian hearth tableau is subtly revealed as hollow by the ‘eye’ of Jane, a revelation that renders her dangerously unsettling to her Aunt Mrs Reed Bessie supports Mrs Reed as she relies on her employer for economic reasons, but also because at this point Jane’s originality is regarded as an affront to the reed household.
The final affront is Jane’s affection for reading . Reading seems sneaky to the Reeds as they do not enjoy the pleasure of language ; it escapes them.
How brilliant the triumphant child fantasy of Jane’s self identifying simile at the end of the passage: ‘like a Turk’. Jane travels to an exotic elsewhere through reading, a place where she is free from the shackles of Mrs Reed’s derisory government.
A fabulous novel in every sense and one of the best explorations of anger I have ever read!
I think she sounds a bit self-satisfied and proud at the fact she is an outsider.
Frank