A most desolate wanderer...

I found this passage in Chapter 6 especially interesting. Both the Chapter itself and this passage provide a sort of break, for both the reader and Jane. For me, Jane's descriptions of fantastic creatures and her awe at their magic reflects her own, not perhaps awe, but her 'desire' to be "privileged" like her relatives, the Reeds. "...a certain brightly painted china plate... had been won't to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration." She wanted to examine it more "closely". But had always been considered "unworthy of such a privilege". Now that she was allowed to examine this china plate, she feels she has lost all interest, it came as a "vain favour", "too late!". All of this corroborates to her position in the household she resides in, as a microcosm for the English nation and nationhood. She feels like Gulliver, "a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions", constantly on the periphery. Jane's journey throughout the novel starts with this idea of being able to be accepted and assimilated into the Reed household, Loowood and so on. She constantly tries to "examine closely", such as when Helen Burns teaches her about her personal code of Christian morality. But all the brands of morality and religion come to her too late, when she has already decided on her own set of beliefs, which of course are strikingly different from those that others around her hold."... the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded... ". The "charm" had all become "eerie and dreary".