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What is an example of foreshadowing in Jane Eyre?

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hozaien | Student, Undergraduate | (Level 3) eNoter

Posted May 21, 2013 at 5:27 PM via web

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What is an example of foreshadowing in Jane Eyre?

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litteacher8 | Middle School Teacher | (Level 1) Distinguished Educator

Posted May 21, 2013 at 6:11 PM (Answer #1)

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This link will describe the style of the book.


Foreshadowing is used in Jane Eyre in the “red-room” as punishment, foreshadowing the gothic influence on her life.

Foreshadowing is hints that something had is going to happen.  Gothic atmosphere involves ghosts and gloom.

Early in the book, young Jane gets into a fateful altercation with her cousin John.  She attacks him, so her aunt Mrs. Reed locks her in the room they call the “red-room.”  The room is terrifying for young Jane, and a perfect example of the gothic style of the book.

Everything in the room is red, dark, and lonely, and the room is generally very gothic and very creepy.

A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the center; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery… (ch 2)

Gothic elements include anything related to ghosts, horror, blood and so on.  It is a collection of dark imagery and ominous mood.  You always get the feeling that something bad is about to happen.  Throughout the book there is a constant gothic influence. 


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