Big Bad Bertha
With the pillow fairy out in the open, it seems that I should make a disclaimer here that not all of Jane’s dreams are this easy to deal with. Jane’s action isn’t always heralded to her direct from her pillow. Sometimes the cause and effect relationship is hard to follow. In fact, some of her dreams are downright terrifying. With this criterion in mind I now bring up Jane’s dream about Bertha. (And what Jane Eyre paper would be complete without a visit from big bad Bertha?)
Right before she is supposed to wed Mr. Rochester, Jane experiences a case of (what can only be described in complicated medical terminology as) cold feet. The fantasy quality that made this marriage so ideal is suddenly the reason for it not working. She has an argument with Mr. Rochester about how her new title, Mrs. Rochester, seems too strange to be true (256-257). (Obviously this is a front, covering up her conflicting emotional issues on the subject.) Jane is frightened and her dreams become frightening. The night before her wedding, Jane is confronted out of sleep by the foul specter of the first Mrs. Rochester:
She took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass."
[...]"Fearful and ghastly to me -- oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face -- it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"
[...]"This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes.
[...]"Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."
[...]"It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me -- she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness: for the second time in my life -- only the second time -- I became insensible from terror." (280-281).
But wait, you say, Jane was awake during this-- how can this count as a dream? This is what’s called, in the science of sleep, as a hypnopompic state. That is the state of mind after immediately waking; you are seeing real things, however, your brain is still in the creative space of dreams. It allows Jane to vent her inner psychology in waking life just like her daydreams and visions. So when Jane sees Bertha, dressed in white and wearing her wedding veil, her subconscious mind twists the situation to express a lingering fear. This is not what Bertha looks like. Jane’s brain makes her to have “lips [...] swelled and dark, black eyebrows, [... and] bloodshot eyes” (281). Psychologically, the whole thing seems to foreshadow a future Jane is very afraid of. Obviously this ordeal does not divine a solution to Jane’s problem. However, following the dream she acts on the fears represented by the dream and decides not to marry Rochester. Because the two events- the dream and the action- happen directly next to each other, the cause and effect relationship is implied.
*upper left- she walks! (from the BBC)
*lower right- a remarkable child. (also BBC)
Read more:
The Practical Use of Dreams in Jane Eyre
The Pillow Fairy
Big Bad Bertha
A Novel Idea
Suggested Reading
About the Author