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Jane Eyre - Language
Read the questions carefully before choosing your answer.

Jane Eyre - Language

This GCSE English Literature quiz takes a look at language. Language in Jane Eyre draws on emotion, ideas of justice, nature, law, education and religion. Descriptions of people are detailed in terms of their physical appearance and behaviour; these portrayals are explicitly linked to inner character. The natural environment is depicted through language which is lyrical and evocative. Jane’s powerful emotions are effectively conveyed through Charlotte Brontë’s mastery of the affective vocabulary, that is to say, language related to feelings.

Analysing language in a text

Texts are understood primarily through the language with which they are written and read. Authors choose individual words with precision.

By paying close attention to individual words and phrases, you will begin to understand the symbolic meanings and associations that lie beyond the obvious literal meanings. Authors create imagery, such as metaphor, simile and personification, and other literary effects, through the thoughtful use of language. An author’s skill in deploying language allows the effective creation of setting, characterisation and dialogue.

You can increase your understanding of a text enormously by paying very close attention to the detail contained in its language. Spend time lingering over the words and imagery used, considering the potential for multiple meanings rather than immediately settling for the surface meaning. Ask yourself what each individual choice of words, or combinations of words, might suggest. Notice the ideas that come to mind as you read. The time and care which you devote to the language will be repaid by an improved ability to analyse literature.

Answer the questions below to develop your understanding of the way language choices affect the reader’s interpretation of Jane Eyre.

1.
"He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page." This sentence contains an example of which literary device?
Allegory
Onomatopoeia
Personification
Metaphor
Jane's face is a page on which her features are the letters and St John can read what is written there
2.
"There was stretched Sarah Reed's once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul." Which language choices give an impression of the hardness of Mrs Reed's character?
Robust, active, strong
Stretched, still, covered
Rigid, flint, cold
Brow, impress, soul
Mrs Reed is inflexible to the last; even upon her deathbed she is unable to show any kindness to her niece
3.
"My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings: something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down — I uttered a wild, involuntary cry." What effect is created by the use of language in this sentence?
The physical sensations of panic
The disturbing sounds of creatures which live in the red room
The reader is reminded of Jane's tendency to embellish the truth
The reader is encouraged to view Jane from an emotional distance
"Thick", "hot", "filled", "rushing" and "something seemed near me": these words are chosen to create an overwhelming sense of panic
4.
"'But to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out: to learn more of you — therefore speak —' Instead of speaking, I smiled: and not a very complacent or submissive smile either."
Which language choices suggest that Jane has no intention of responding to Rochester's order?
Instead
Not
Very complacent or submissive
All of the above
To be complacent or submissive would mean to do as Rochester has ordered
5.
"While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells: the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality; that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors." What has been personified in these lines?
Gloom and fear
Bright May
Rooms and passages
Death and disease
Death and disease have become inhabitants of the school. Medicine ("the drug and pastille") has also been personified: it is "striving vainly"
6.
"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight, but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell." What effect does the word "shroud" have here?
The word introduces the idea of death on the morning of Jane's and Rochester's wedding day
It reminds the reader of the sorrow of Mrs Reed's death
The word reminds the reader that nothing at all is known of Jane's childhood
The word introduces a humorous note
The white gown can be a wedding dress or a burial shroud, encapsulating Jane's conflicting emotions at the thought of marrying Rochester
7.
"I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered." The use of language creates which impression here?
The world is large and frightening
Nature is kind and nurturing
The world is mysterious and cold
Nature is small in scale and knowable
The next sentence is: "Nature seemed to me benign and good: I thought she loved me, outcast as I was"
8.
In this passage describing the sounds made by the hidden Bertha, which phrase does not liken her to an animal or make her seem less than human?
"Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast or fiend in yonder side den"
"But since Mr Rochester's visit it seemed spell-bound"
"All the night I heard but three sounds at long intervals — a step creak..."
"A momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep, human groan"
Bertha is referred to as an "it" which snarls like a dog and lives in a den
9.
"That wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace. As it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour." Which language choices refer strictly to Jane's own emotions?
Sadness, chaos, gloom
Excitement, reckless, feverish
Reckless, howl, darkness
Gloom, confusion, clamour
Jane's inner emotional state, which she describes as a reckless and feverish excitement, is reflected in the wild chaos of the weather outdoors
10.
"As for me, I daily wished more to please him: but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation." Which use of language does NOT convey the unnatural direction Jane is taking at this point in the novel?
Disown
Stifle
Wrest
Vocation
Jane feels strongly that her nature rebels against her determination to please her cousin
You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Form, structure and language

Author:  Sheri Smith
English Literature Play this quiz again

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