Seeing Red

The colour red is a recurring shade in Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre. The first time the colour makes an appearance is on a dreary November morning, when no chance of a walk gives Jane the opportunity to curl up with a book. The hiding place she chooses is a window seat and Jane enshrines herself behind the “red moreen curtain”. The read curtain here then represents a separation from the rest of the world (to be more specific the Reed family) and a place where Jane’s imagination can run wild and free. The colour red appears repeatedly in instances where there is a giving in to extreme emotion, and a lack of self-restraint. Jane’s punishment for reacting to John Reed is to be locked up in the red room. The mention of this room leads to resistance on her part, which she herself admits to being “a new thing for me”. Young Jane, who has lived her life until this point with the knowledge that her cousins are more entitled than her questions “Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?” This questioning not only shows Jane’s awareness of her poverty due to her being an orphan but also the knowledge that she is not a servant (a position she continues to struggle with when she becomes a governess, where again she is not a lady and not a servant either) but also the awakening of her conflict with patriarchy, where she tries to reconcile her Victorian morality (a construct of religion and patriarchy) and the violent passion that is within her (as symbolised by the colour red).