We talked about all the different motifs in Jane Eyre and I don't know maybe I'm not a very close reader, but I rarely picked up on any. The only recurrence I found was fire and ice, so I figured Charlotte Bronte must have really wanted the reader to pick up on it, if she made it obvious enough for even me to pick out.
When fire and ice are used together, I typically interpret fire to represent passion and desire, while I assume that ice represents just the opposite. Likewise fire is often grouped with love, while ice represents hatred.
The main character, Jane, seems to have the fiery personality of anyone in the book. She's passionate about her schooling as well as her job, which allows her to quickly excel. She's also fiery in the way that assaults John Reed in a time period where something like that is unheard of. Shortly after that, she yells at Mrs. Reed yet again proving her feisty personality. Not only does the scene show the fire that Jane has, but the ice/ hatred she has for Mrs. Reed. Jane shows hatred towards most of the residents at Gateshead (all except Bessie), but the love that Jane also possesses comes out in Lowood and Thornfeild. She shows fire in the way she cares about Miss Temple, Helen Burns, Mrs, Fairfox, Mr. Rochester, and Adele.
Mr. Rochester becomes a main character in the book upon Jane's arrival at Thornfeild. On their first encounter he seems arrogant and icy towards Jane, but as the book goes on his regards to Jane quickly soften.
I don't think that Charlotte Bronte intends for her characters to be strictly firey or icy, but for them to have a combination of traits to make them different from each other and show the way different character interact.
This is a very good blog hannah. I also picked up on the fire and ice motif but never thought of applying them to the characters. IT's cool that you actually looked back into the book to find instances where fire and ice are used as motifs. Good Job!
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