Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron. The Bride (1869). Model is Annie Chinery (Mrs. Ewen Cameron). Albumen print. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
1. Jane was extremely happy that Rochester proposed to her, and yet she still felt uneasy about her upcoming marriage. Jane becomes discomforted when Rochester begins to spoil her with glorious things: “The more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation” (309). Why do you think Jane felt this way?
2. Jane has strange dreams leading up to her wedding. She tells Rochester, “I dreamt another dream…that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls” (325). What do you think is the significance of her dreams and what do they represent? How does Bronte create a feeling of gloom and pending disaster in these chapters?
Group 3 MB
ENGH 202: Why Women Read Romance 
1. Jane didn’t want Rochester to spoil her with presents because she wanted to keep her feeling of independence and not conform to his wishes. It would also make her seem like his own doll he could change and dress up and transform, but she wanted to keep to her true intelligent self. She also doesn’t want their relationship to change so much before that are even married.
2. The dreams are an omen as to what is about to happen. It also shows that even though Jane loves Rochester she isn’t 100% comfortable with him, with good reason. Her dreams are about what she think will happen in their relationship, with Rochester always at a distance. Bronte’s vocabulary creates and eery feeling for their reader and sets us up for a scene we know will change the entire story and way we look at Rochester.
1. Jane felt this way about the marriage because I believe she was too overwhelmed on the whole aspect of the wedding. Jane also doesn’t want to be spoiled by all these gifts she could only wished of having. She doesn’t wanted to grow dependent in the relationship, even though she will marry him, she still wants to be independent. She wants to earn her things rather than have them handed to her, and she expresses it to Rochester: “I’ll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but -” ‘Well, but what?’ ‘your regard” (Bronte, pg. 202)
2. The significance of her dreams symbolizes how Jane feels without Rochester by her side. She describes the dream of Thornfield to be a ruin with bats and owls. A ruin is empty, Thornfield is empty. Jane feels empty without Rochester in her life. Bronte creates a feeling of gloom during the last few chapters right after Rochester separates from Jane. Also, it creates the gothic feel for the novel when Jane expresses her fears, and nightmares she’s been having that lead up to the strange event of the woman who came near her to her room.
1. Jane feels worry about becoming a women of society and all that the implication of becoming Mr. Rochester’s wife. Since she has never been privileged to be spoiled and treated with the attentions and luxuries that he will entitle her to. She also feels as if she will again be depend on someone as she was depended from her benefactress Mrs. Reed. She fears to fall again in that period of life.
2.The dreams she continues to dream are due to how much she is stressed about the whole situation. She loves Mr. Rochester but she isn’t one hundred ready or certain that is really what she wants. She fears the unknown the future next to him and the future without him with her.
1. I feel like Jane felt discomfort when Mr. Rochester begins to spoil her because she is not use to the treatment and it does not make her feel like an independent woman anymore. Jane has never grown up with wealthy belongings and tells Mr. Rochester straight up that she does not want any jewels or fancy materialistic things, ” Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not have them” (Bronte, pg. 259). As Mr. Rochester brings up the subject, I feel like Jane gets really uncomfortable with the matter because it is another example of how both of them belong to different classes, Mr Rochester is part of the wealthy class and Jane is a governess. Jane and Mr. Rochester have talked about beauty before and agreed that physically beauty is not everything but now she feels like he is trying to transform her into someone she is not with all these gifts. She also states later on that she will continue to be the governess and will pay for her own clothes, that shows that she does not want Mr. Rochester to think that she will be dependent on him.
1. Jane felt discomfort when Rochester began to spoil her because she’s used to the simple life she always had. She rarely had anyone to ever shower her with gifts while she was growing up and now that Rochester and Jane are close to getting married, Rochester wants to buy her expensive dresses and jewelry. But Jane did not like Rochester changing the way she looks and this is causing her to appear like someone she does not want to be and afraid to lose her independence.