Painting Analysis in Jane Eyre Essay Example For Students

Painting Analysis in Jane Eyre Essay Canes art transcends her isolation by bringing her into contact with others who see it; it functions as a bridge between her desire to be alone and her need for companionship. Despite her struggles With inner conflict and the people in her life, Jeans art helps her find personal power, marking her true identity as her own woman. Whether it is her love of drawings or the creations of her own, artwork has provide Jane a means of agency to survive the harrowing conditions afforded to the orphan child, allowing her to emerge as a wealthy, independent social equal. The first glimpse of Canes resourcefulness and mental escape comes from one of the first activities in the novel. She escapes from her powerless place in the hostile Reed household temporarily through a book taking care that it should be en stored with pictures She retreats to a solitary window-seat, having drawn the red Noreen curtain nearly close Haired in double retirement, and buries herself in Berwick A History of British Birds The window offered protection, but not separation from the outside: At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect footpath winter afternoon Through the images and quotes contained therein, Jane manages to acquire the only kind of power to she access to- knowledge, Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting Her interpretation of the illustrations provides training for the young girl, vivo will later produce her own images. Her quest for identity and power has begun, and the young orphan begins to discover how she can begin her journey to find her place as a social equal. Interrupting her happy retreat, looking at the pictures, is her wretched cousin John Reed. He claims that Jane, as a dependent in his household, has no right to look at books without his permission. As punishment for her transgression, he throws her favorite Berwick Birds at her, physically knocking Jane down with its force (3-5). A fight ensues, with Jane comparing Reeds actions to those of murderers, slave drivers, and Roman emperors. Adults intervene; Jane is blamed for the conflict and is confined to the red room where she experiences terrible suffering, In this incident, Jeans visual pleasure takes the form of looking at art objects in prints and illustrated books. Instead of being a harmless leisure activity, this looking is regarded by the male character as a provocation, setting off various stratagems aimed to reconfirm rights tot ownership by laying down restrictive or subordinating conditions of access (Groom 374). Confrontations between Jane and male authority would follow her from her removal from the Reed home to her schooling at Elwood. Early on in her education at Alderwoman finds herself in a situation similar to that of the breakfast room incident at Gathered. Trying to escape the notice of the headmaster Mr.. Brochures. With no massive curtain to shield her this time, she held slate in such a manner as to conceal face (62). The treacherous slate slipped from her grasp and crashed to the floor. As she rallied forces for the Swart. It came (62). In a humiliating light Of indignation, Mr.. Brochures, placing Jane on a stool for all to see, biblically admonishes her for dropping school property. He further attempts to ostracize her from the others by condemning her a liar (information he received from Mrs.. Reed, Canes wretched benefactress). Jane serves the time, designated by her punisher, sobbing and full of shame. She realizes that this wrongdoing would eliminate Miss Temples promise to teach her drawing and to learn French. Jane descends from the stool in search of Miss Temple, her beloved superintendent, who often *listens to Mr.. Brushstrokes serializing in ladylike silence with her tout closed as if it would have required a sculptors chisel to open r (Gilbert 784). Miss Temple kindly allows Jane to speak in her detente, such an unfamiliar concept conning from the Reed residence. Once Canes story is corroborated she is rewarded with beginning lessons in drawing and French. Her subsequent years at the Elwood Institution, although glossed over by Bronze, are when Jane emerges as an artist. Her first sketch is landscape with a crooked cottage whose graphic limitations bring about a daydream that evening in which she envisions a feast of more accomplished imagery(72). Each imaginary scene is one she anticipates producing with her own hands: picturesque landscapes with ruins, lowing cattle that recall Dutch painters like Cup, butterflies hovering near roses, birds pecking at fruit. Through this elegiac, bucolic, wish-fulfilling dreamboats, she sees herself become adept at making freely- penciled, rather than minutely copied, renderings Of the natural world intensively and expansively observed. (Groom 377-378) Jeans goal is clearly much higher than reproducing Others works. She sees herself acquiring the skills off professional artist. Jane learns at Elwood that she can create and lose resell in alternate worlds when she draws and paints. She shows the ability to envision a cheerful life different from her circumstances. However, following Miss Temples departure from Elwood, Jane returns to feelings of isolation. Once again she finds solace gazing out a window, realizing the promise the other side has to offer. Her restless desire of life outside the classroom leads Jane to seek employment elsewhere. It is through her preparations to leave Elwood that the reader learns of Canes growth and achievement as an artist. Her pictorial facility is a landscape, a watercolors given to the superintendent of Elwood, who had interceded on her blithest Brochures to obtain tort Jane a reticence and permission to leave the school (Groom 379), The painting framed, and placed prominently over the chimney-piece, in the parlor at Elwood Her painting is one of several accomplishments that impress Bessie, the Gathered servant who visits upon learning of Canes departure for her next job at Threefold Bessie thinks the painting is beautiful: It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reeds drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it (90), Jane now possesses the accomplishments f a lady, and to a degree which will ensure her economic independence as a teacher. The picture Bessie sees is not described; it has no significance for Jane other than as a social gesture T functions simply as a milestone on her advance to independence (Militate 316). Canes artistic confidence and her newly acquired social status, follow her to her next adventure at Threefold. During her time as a governess, Canes art continues to gain the attention Of others. Shortly after Rochester first appearance at Threefold, he summons lane and tries to get to know Canes qualifications as governess for Ad ©el. Rochester asks to view again some of her work the young girl had shown him, adding, l dont know whether they were entirely of your doing: probably a master aided you? (124). Jane vehemently denies his accusation, yet Rochester remains skeptical. Analysis Of Islam EssayShe scolds herself for her romantic fantasies about Rochester that could ruin herself and her career. The contrast between the real and the ideal is imagined and put forth, to keep in mind the distance between desire and reality'(Swim 193). Here Jane paints out of her minds eye, not in order to indulge her imagination, but to control IL Jane returns to Gathered to visit her dying Aunt Reed. Bessie greats her kindly, but Jane otherwise receives a cold greeting from her aunt and cousins. Returning to such a disheartening place, coupled with missing Rochester, Jane uses her art as a means of comfort. She carries her art with her because art supplies her with occupation or amusement (250). Her first sketch there shows her thoughts in line with Rochesters as she sketches the characters that he often associated with her (Classes 116), She draws: Fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of im agination: a glimpse of sea between vivo rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiads head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out often; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrows nest, under a wreath tot hawthorn-bloom, (236-237) Her fantasies shift to real possibility, she sketches a face-Rochester, all in heavy black pencil and complete with flashing eyes (237). Jane describing her own work and the qualities she seeks to emphasize in the artist strength, determination, flexibility and spirit reinforce what Jane finds attractive in Rochester _ The portrait of Rochester is involuntarily made and, in fact, helps to close the gap between the mind and the representational object: spontaneity, imagination, sexuality, and sexual desire combine to produce a portrait that faithfully represents the painters state of mind (Swim 195). In a time Of emotional need, she unconsciously conjures up a speaking likeness Of the man she loves (237). After leaving Threefold, following the interrupted marriage ceremony, Canes art provides a temporary asylum, as she grieves for Rochester. During her stay at the Moor house, her artwork earns her the admiration of Diana and Mary Rivers. They are so impressed with her talents that they give her all of their drawing supplies (360). Once again Jane attributes her talents with social status when she remarks, My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them (360). Their appreciation of her artistic skills, and their generosity help strengthen Canes weakened disposition, Jeans struggles to cope with losing everything that mattered to her, her artwork enlivens those around her- especially Roseland Oliver. Canes art excites admiration, impressing Rochester with its peculiar power and electric#wing Roseland with surprise and delight. Canes painting and sketching quietly satisfy an impulse toward a kind of display that is itself subordinated to pleasure in looking as when she happily agrees to sketch a portrait of Roseland: I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model (Newman 157). Jeans first description of Roseland presents a figure seen entirely from an artists angle: eyes shaped and colored as we see them in lovely pictures The penciled brow The livelier duties of tint and ray, (372). *The ease with which this terminology is manipulated shows a new detachment in Jane, as well as suggesting a certain superficiality in the figure she exams (Militate 319). Even though Jane can use her imaginative faculties to alleviate the pain of reality, she does not separate from reality (Classes 116). She grieves constantly for the loss Of Rochester and her identity. Her art does not offer the same gratifying rewards that it once did. Her work has continued to mature and is evident by Rosewoods portrait Mr.. Oliver and SST. John Rivers authenticate the precision of the portrait. The painting also causes Shoots to admit to Jane What she already knows that he is in love with Roseland and it is while he gazes at the picture that he allows himself to give way to his feelings for a set period of time a little space for delirium and delusion, he calls it (Loosen 256). The painting also serves another function. The portrait of Roseland Oliver brings to fruition, Canes aspirations for independence, SST. John recognizes her as the rightful heir of a fortune. His proof of her identity consists of a signature in the ravished margin of portrait-cover, which Jane confronts as if it belonged o another: Ye got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words JANE ERE' (392), Jane construes her signature as the work doubtless of some moment tot abstraction and thus disowns it as the product of her own volition, even as it fulfills the conditions of he uncles will and her own desires to be financially independent and to belong to a family (Marcus 217). Jane Eyres art is mode of self-expression, revealing in rare glimpses her depth of character and aspirations for independence As Militate suggests, her work is one means of charting her growth to maturity/ (315). Beginning in the window- seat at Gathered, a ten-year-old girl escapes abuse and neglect by escaping through images in her beloved books, through twenty years of creating herself through her art, Jane ends her career as an artist When she becomes Mrs.. Jane Rochester. In the account of her married life in the final chapter, all her imaginative activity and visionary skill are devoted to the task Of embodying in words, for the benefit of her blind husband. Her gift of words helps her to create a new artist identity-a storyteller.