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Jane Eyre - Language

Explore how Charlotte Brontë uses language in Jane Eyre, from vivid nature imagery to powerful dialogue, and learn how to zoom in on key words for grade analysis.

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Fascinating Fact:

Nature descriptions function as emotional landscapes, with winds, skies, and seasons echoing Jane’s inner states.

In GCSE English Literature, you need to show how writers use language to shape character, mood and theme. This Jane Eyre quiz focuses on imagery, symbolism and narrative voice, helping you build precise, insightful analysis.

Key Terms

Imagery: Descriptive language that appeals to the senses and helps readers picture scenes or feelings.
Pathetic fallacy: When weather or nature seems to reflect a character’s emotions or the mood of a scene.
Narrative voice: The voice telling the story, shaping how we understand events, characters and ideas.

Frequently Asked Questions (Click to see answers)

How do I analyse language in Jane Eyre for GCSE English?

Pick short quotations, zoom in on key words, identify techniques such as imagery or pathetic fallacy and explain how these choices reveal character, mood or themes like love and independence.

What is an example of pathetic fallacy in Jane Eyre?

When storms, winds or changing skies match Jane’s feelings, such as turbulent weather during moments of emotional conflict, Brontë uses pathetic fallacy to turn nature into a reflection of her inner life.

How can I get higher marks for language analysis in Jane Eyre?

To gain higher marks, connect language choices to the question, comment on specific words, link to themes and context and show how Brontë guides the reader’s response to Jane and Rochester.

Try These Related Quizzes

1 .

"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"

2 .

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

3 .

"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

4 .

"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"

5 .

"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

6 .

"'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

7 .

"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

8 .

"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

9 .

"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

10 .

"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

You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Form, structure and language

Author: Sheri Smith (PhD English Literature, English Teacher & Quiz Writer)