Indeed, in Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Bronte, there is much foreshadowing in Chapter 25 of the most unfortunate occurrences of
Chapter 26. For, as Jane anticipates her wedding day, she anxiously awaits the return
of Mr. Rochester. When Jane runs down to the gates where she can peer down the road she
remarks,
A
puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked--a tear of disappointment and impatience...'I
wish he would come!....'I exclaimed, seized with the hypochondriac foreboding....The
event of last night again recurred to me [the splitting of the tree]. I interpreted it
as a warning of disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realized and I had
enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and
must now decline.
That Jane
feels a presentiment about her wedding day is underscored by her
comment,
who
knows with what fate the next [hour] may come
charged?
Jane tells Mr.
Rochester of a dream that she has had in which Thornfield Hall
is
in dreary
ruin, the retreat of bats and owls....I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening
every moment....I hushed the scared infant in my lap...the wall crumbled; I was shaken;
the child rolled from my
knee....
Upon awakening, Jane
says, she beheld a woman who was tall and large with "thick and dark hair hanging long
down her back." She took Jane's wedding veil, held it up, gazed at it, and then threw
it over her head as she gazed into a mirror. Her face was discolored, savage, and her
red eyes rolled against the "fearful blackened inflation of the
lineaments."
The next day as Mr. Rochester and Jane stand
together to be married, a man's voice is heard,
The marriage cannot go on: I declare the
existence of an impediment....Mr. Rochester has a wife now
living.
In Mr. Rochester's
absence, people have arrived at Thornhill. Another witness appears: Mrs. Rochester's
brother, witnessing that the wife lives in Thornhill. Dissembling no more, Rochester
admits to having a wife. He, then, leads them to where Mrs. Grace has been caring for
the woman, an utterly mad woman. Returning to her room, Jane concludes that she must
leave Thornhill, although her prospects are
"desolate."
No comments:
Post a Comment