Chapter 2

At the beginning of chapter two we see rebellious/fiery side of Jane's character becoming exposed, she acknowledges that her "resistance" to being dragged to the red room is a "new thing" for her so we know that she does not often resist the forcefullness of the Reeds. She momentarily compares it to "mutiny"  and even herself to a "rebel slave". At this point Jane cannot control her emotions and continually resists the efforts of Abbot and Bessie to control her, she only lapses her resistance when she realises Mrs Reed is planning to tie her down with Abbots garments, at this point Jane acknowlegdes this "took the excitement out of me".
At this point in the novel it is clear Jane is still a young child who cannot control her emotions, her fit of anger draws paralells with that of a small child.

When Jane is speaking to Bessie, Bessie threatens that if Jane does not stop her tempers she will be sent to "the poor house",  she uses this as the a threat at is well known the upper classes fear poverty and being poor. For the Victorian's social stature was a fixed system, the class you were born into was expected to be the class you die in, Bessie threatens Jane with being sent to the poorer parts of England because she knows young Jane will view this decline down the social ladder as a horrific idea, as she displays later in the novel "Poverty looks grim... No i should not like to belong to poor people".

From the quote "God will punish her: He might strike her dead" make it obvious that religion in the Victorian era was still taken very seriously, almost as fact. It is clear that the speaker thinks that God is actually capable of striking Jane down; while modern readers may dismiss this claim, religious readers of the time would often agree with the statement.

Charlotte uses the adjectives "chill" and "silent" in describing the red room to create a link towards death or gothic settings like graveyards and ghouls, the silence only suggests that something will happen to break the silence and creates tension through this, the chill could reference the feeling of a spirit in the room or reference the cold touch of a corpse. Similarly, "cold as stone" also could parallel the touch of a gravestone or the rigid stone like qualities of a body.

The red room was the final resting place of her uncle, Mr Reed, so naturally Jane as a child is scared of the room.

When Jane is looking into the mirror in the red room the narrative shifts to a third person viewpoint, for this moment it appears as though Jane does not recognise herself describing a "strange little figure" with "a white face and arms specking the gloom". This description is obviously quite unnerving and freak-like; incidentally this idea of her not recognising herself parallels Bertha's insanity as she cannot recognise herself in the mirrors of Thornfield. Similarly, when Jane describes having a "disturbed mind" and "the brain was in constant tumult"

Jane's childlike imagination features when she begins listing fairytale creatures from Bessie's stories: Phantoms, half fairy, half imp.

Throughout the novel we continually get brought back the the colour red to emphasise motifs (fire and ice) or express symbolism, in this particular chapter it is the red room itself that is used to express hidden meanings. From a simple perspective the "red" room represents Jane's anger, simply "seeing red" and it is the "Red Room' That Jane will mentally return to upon suffering later in life. However, deeper psychological readings of the red room could lead you to believe the room represents the womb,  and when Mrs Reed forces her into it she could be wishing to force her back into "the womb" in an attempt to re birth her as a loveable child, or as a Reed child, as at the moment she cannot love her. Furthermore, linking again to the womb, the Red Room could reference a woman menstration, a "coming of age" and it is this chapter that we see the young Jane begin to change into a wiser, learned character. This chapter marks the beginning of Jane's change.