2.3. Sandra M. Gilbert's "A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane's Progress"

"For the little drama enacted on 'that day' which opens Jane Eyre is in itself a paradigm of the larger

drama that occupies the entire book: Jane's anomalous, orphaned position in society, her enclosure

in stultifying roles and houses, and her attempts to escape through flight, starvation, and ... madness.

And that Charlotte Bronte quite consciously intended the incident in the red-room to serve as a

paradigm for the larger plot of her novel is clear not only from its position in the narrative but also from

Jane's own recollection of the experience at crucial moments throughout the book: when she is

humiliated by Mr. Brocklehurst at Lowood, for instance, and on the night when she decides to leave 

Thornfield. In between these moments, moreover, Jane's pilgrimage consists of a series of 

experiences which are, in one way or another, variations on the central, red-room motif of enclosure

and escape." (Gilbert & Gubar, Madwoman 341)

I agree with Gilbert's argument based on the fact that the things that Jane Eyre experiences in the red-room had an effect on many of her choices that followed. The larger plot Gilbert is referring to is the plot of Jane's subconscious decisions and the manner in which she reacted in certain circumstances. The emotions Jane Eyre went through within the red-room affected her throughout her lifetime, due to her circumstances in the very emotionally abusive hostile household. Throughout the novel Jane has the struggle of entrapment and escape and the red-room was where all this became clear to her, this therefore had an influence upon her choices each time she came into a similar situation.

The red-room is the single stem of the whole theme of entrapment and escape within the novel and therefore the red-room is of utmost importance. The effect of the drama on 'that day' would appear in each analysis of a decision Jane Eyre made throughout the rest of the novel and therefore I agree that it is the single consistent motif Jane Eyre had in all situations.