Cold imagery is everywhere in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. There are various forms of cold imagery found in each character's personality and life experiences. Cold images take on various forms, such as Jane's descriptions of pictures in a book displaying the Arctic, and figurative language including ice, water, rain, and sleet. The descriptive imagery of coldness symbolizes both the repression of passion, physical and emotional, and the tribulations endured throughout the course of the novel.

Jane Eyre is a fiercely passionate, vivacious, imaginative individual who expresses her emotions and events through vivid imagery. Jane suffers turmoil from the opening paragraph and narrates her early life experiences with cold images. Charlotte Bronte quickly advises the reader of the turmoil awaiting Jane through the use of a dreary cold winter setting. For example, in the novel Jane says:

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner . . . the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of it; I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed. (39; ch. 1)

The dreary winter setting coincides with the lonely, detached, and abandoned feelings of Jane Eyre. The "leafless shrubbery" implies the desolation felt by Jane. This is also symbolic of her being an orphan. Leaves cover and shelter a shrub like what parents would do for their children. Jane has no living parents and resides with a cold and uncaring guardian, her Aunt Reed. "Clouds so sombre" are symbolic of her melancholy feelings due to loneliness, need of affection, and a lack of love. Donald Erickson, in "Imagery as Structure in Jane Eyre," asserts:

Even the earliest pages of the book show the wintry nature of Jane's youth, for they are filled with somber references to rain, sleet, and penetrating winter winds that howl sorrowfully about the eaves of Gateshead. The barrenness, coldness, and essential hostility of this world, and Jane's subjective response to it, is shown repeatedly by such nature imagery early in the narrative. (18)

Though Jane leaves the cold outdoors she does not receive warmth inside, either. She is sent to her room to remain in solitude as punishment for not having "a more sociable childlike disposition" (39; ch. 1). While being punished, she reads a book, Bewick's History of British Birds. The book contains pictures, described by Jane, which illustrate her lonely and alienated feelings. Jane explains:

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland with 'the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forelorn regions of dreary space - that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters,...and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold. (40; ch. 1)

During Jane's childhood, these images provide the missing dialogue of a child’s interaction with the world. Imagery provides the substance needed to illustrate the meaning and significance of the emotions of a distraught and alienated orphan. Bronte uses the pictures as a substitute for the lack of verbal expression, which is common with children. Children often have difficulty with expression, and Bronte takes advantage of this circumstance by substituting verbal with visual. Early on, Bronte uses images to express the emotions of young Jane Eyre, and in the later sections of the novel, Bronte refers to similar images in the paintings that Jane creates while at Lowood. For instance, Cynthia Linder contends:

It is significant that the pictures which she singles out for her attention are these which are analogous to her own state; pictures which show the bleak regions of the Arctic, shipwrecks, a graveyard, and a fiend, all of which are emblems of what she feels, but is too young to be able to express in words. (35-36)

The lack of dialogue in the first chapter is replaced with repetitive images of the cold. Jane is not capable of expressing her emotional condition consciously to the reader. Therefore, Bronte provides cold imagery to symbolically illustrate her emotions through the pictures of Bewick's book. The imagery implies that the environment in which she resides is cold and barren. Though Jane lives with relatives, she has not known them to be a caring family. The solitude delegated as punishment is cold and uncaring under the circumstances. Bronte shows the progression of Jane’s maturity from the external description of cold images to the internal repression of sexual and emotional passions.

As Jane Eyre matures into adulthood, she is able to express and repress her inner most feelings whether they are grand or sorrowful. Through maturity and self-discipline, Jane learns to control and inhibit sexual and emotional passions. This repression is noted in Jane’s various relationships, which range from the estranged Reed family to her encounters with Mr. Rochester. While at Thornfield, Jane is notified of her cousin John's suicide and the failing health of Mrs. Reed. Jane prepares to leave for Gateshead once again, at her Aunt Reed request. At this point, Bronte wants the reader to vividly remember the hardships endured at Gateshead in the opening scenes of the novel. This earlier section is alluded to with Jane’s departure during the winter season, which coincides with the emotional status of younger Jane Eyre. The bitter memories of the past are relived as if nine years had never passed:

On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart--a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation . . . [t]he same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. (256; ch. 21)

Jane’s lonely childhood resonates in this passage. Bronte provides dual images of the cold both internal and external. For instance, the control Jane has over her passions reflects a rigid, coldness within her personality, thereby maintaining a distance from her most passionate feelings. Bronte emphasizes the reoccurring memories of an ill-fated childhood existence and Jane’s power to control them. The anticipated gloomy feelings are premonitory of the treatment by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her cousins. Upon arriving, Jane’s finds that the cold, uncaring Aunt Reed has changed little since Jane's departure nine years ago. Jane tries to comfort Mrs. Reed physically and emotionally with little success:

Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me--her feelings towards me--was unchanged and unchangeable . . . [my] tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their source. (259; ch. 21)

Bronte emphasizes the self-discipline that has come with Jane's maturity. The notion is clearly stated in the sentence, "My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their source" (259; ch. 21). Bronte reminds the reader that there is a recurring coldness that has been contained in the older Jane. Jane is able to repress the former impassioned feelings of dislike and contempt, unlike Mrs. Reed. The dispassionate, intolerable feelings exhibited by Jane's cousins are the same as before. Jane says, "They were very cold, indeed, at first" (ch. 21; 261). Jane's discontent at Gateshead prompts her to advertise for employment as a governess.

As the story continues and characters are introduced, Bronte provides other examples of Jane's repressed passions both physically and emotionally. For example, Bronte shifts the cold images of Lowood to a description of Jane's repressed passions toward her new employer. During her employment as a governess, Jane is tormented by her love for her employer, which is challenging for her disciplined soul. Mr. Rochester has not expressed his love for Jane since he is unsure of her true feelings. Jane’s love and simultaneous repression are apparent in that the absence of Mr. Rochester upsets Jane. Jane says, "I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart" (192; ch. 17). Bronte conveys the turmoil associated with repressed passion because Jane struggles with herself. At one point, Jane says, "so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies and so forth" (192; ch. 17). Bronte ends the sentence with "agonies and so forth" leaving the reader with the image of heartache, loneliness, and emotional pain caused by her love. Jane's repression of passion is turned into heartache after accepting a marriage proposal from Mr. Rochester.

While at the wedding ceremony, the tragic truth becomes publicly known. The priest performing the marriage ceremony states, "if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined to together in matrimony..." (317; ch. 26). A stranger announces that Mr. Rochester is currently married, and his first wife is still alive, much to the shock and dismay of both Jane and Mr. Rochester. At this moment, Jane feels abandoned, alienated, and heart-broken. This following passage is loaded with repetitive cold imagery to emphasize just how horrible this experience is for Jane:

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent expectant woman---almost a bride---was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud; lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow . . .[m]y hopes were all dead---struck with a subtle doom . . . my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill livid corpses that could never revive. (323-324; ch. 26)

Notice the reprisal of her lonely childhood as it is mentioned in the above passage. It is the loss of not only her love and trust, but also her hopes and dreams. Though the current season of this passage is summer, the feelings of winter have entered her heart. No amount of external warmth will penetrate the coldness of her shattered emotions. The depiction of "livid corpses" amplifies Jane's state of mind, which is completely abandoned and therefore emotionally dead along with her dreams.

The repression of passion, once employed by Jane, is resorted to again. Opposing desires to stay or to leave Mr. Rochester, torment Jane. During their discussion, Jane succumbs to her heartache, when she says, "I had been struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to repress them" (330; ch. 27). She strongly takes a stand and advises Mr. Rochester that all passionate feelings must be stifled much to both their dismay. Mr. Rochester simply cannot seem to accept her stance. He says, "What! do you think you can live with me, and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?" Jane replies, "No sir; that I am certain I could not . . . Mr. Rochester I must leave you" (331; ch. 27). Finally, Jane admits that is takes great amounts of self-discipline to control her love and desire for Mr. Rochester. The emphasis of this repression is questioned explicitly by Mr. Rochester, when he says, "be always cold and distant?" (331; ch. 27). This disastrous event causes Jane to leave Thornfield. After which she meets St. John Rivers, a clergyman. St. John Rivers is similar to Jane with regard to the repression of physical and emotion passions. Both seem to deny themselves any pleasures deriving from physical and emotional love. They have different reasons for their repression, but both deny themselves passionate bliss. Bronte draws a parallel between the weather and their feelings to reflect and dramatize the situation. The fierce storm produces a bone chilling rain that symbolizes not only Jane's heartbreak coupled with starvation, but also the fierce, cold personality of St. John Rivers. He charitably takes her in, but he lacks any compassion for her.

Bronte depicts this clergyman as a heartless, self-centered, distant man. St. John prefers to keep a distance from all passions that are naturally the result of human contact. Friendship does not seem feasible nor does St. John desire it. He extends charity to Jane by providing shelter and food, but does not provide her with the warmth of friendship. Bronte provides two reasons for St. John’s contemptuous behavior. Jane explains, "but besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature" (378; ch. 30).

The coolness he exerts portrays the stern, self-depriving components that make up most of his personality. The cold personality is representative of extreme self-denial displayed by St. John. This is obvious to Jane, and eventually she confronts him: "You speak cooly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting away" (400; ch. 32). The manner of his "cooly" speech indicates to what extent he has a distant and repressive personality. The flesh, including the heart, is weak and will provide humanity with eternal damnation, according to St. John. St. John metaphorically displays his cold personality through his description of the sea:

When I colour, and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself, I scorn the weakness. I now it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed as a rock, form set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am--a cold, hard man . . . Reason not feeling, is my guide: my ambition is unlimited; my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. . . I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer. (400-401; ch. 32)

This passage foreshadows the entire emotionless relationship between Jane and St. John. Eric Solomon illustrates similar notions: "St. John Rivers (note the last name) contains the icy waters that would put out fire, destroy passion" (216). St. John admits that coldness is his nature: "Know me to be what I am--a cold, hard man." In the following line, he continues, "I am simply . . . a cold, hard, ambitious man" (401; ch. 32). St. John finds beautiful women a liability, therefore, useless to him. Jane only seems desirable to him because of her employment prospects and work ethic. St. John has forsaken sexual passion for his rigid religious career and virtues. Bronte's depiction of St. John is similarly characterized by Moglen:

In him, Charlotte Bronte has drawn a stunning portrait of the martyr . . . Defining self-denial as its own virtue, St. John wishes to sacrifice his life to others although he is by admission, a "cold, hard man" . . . And the extent to which his religious fervor is the result of sexual fear and repression is revealed in his more subtle and complex relationship with Jane. (136)

Ironically, the coldness depicted by the clergyman has a hypocritical religious connotation. The compassion of a clergyman is void in St. John, showing the rigidity Bronte associated with Evangelicalism. Though the fact remains that even though both Jane and St. John repress their sexuality, passions and instinctual desires, they do so for different reasons. The cold imagery shifts away from sexual and emotional repression.

Later, the cold imagery envelops the entire personality of Mr. Rochester after the fire at Thornfield Hall maims him. Bronte foreshadows the discovery of something bad through the use of cold weather. For instance, Jane sets out to find Mr. Rochester on a cold morning: "the first day of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain beat fast on my casement" (446; ch. 36). The juxtaposition of the warm spring month of June and the "overcast and chilly" morning signals a future complication. Jane arrives at Thornfield to discover the tragic fire and its crippling effect on Mr. Rochester.

The raging fires that destroy Bertha and Thornfield Hall produce both cold and bitterly resentful feelings for Mr. Rochester. The imagery of the cold is used to depict the loss of love and emotion felt by him. Mr. Rochester states:

Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat; and the ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium to behold my Jane again. (462; ch. 37)

The coldness felt by the loss of Jane crippled Rochester’s mentality to the point that he felt so much "hunger" that he "forgot to eat" (462; ch. 37). The completely cold emptiness of a loveless life is described as the prevailing emotion felt by Rochester: "feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out" (462; ch. 37). The fire was allowed to go out due to neglect of attention. The lonely and cold feelings once felt by Jane and then by Mr. Rochester give way to their final and happy destination, marriage.

Bronte provides several different situations that are depicted through images of the cold. The coolness is always a negative experience because is depicts the lack of love. The repression of passion is shown through varying degrees of cold imagery. First, through Jane's repression of love for Mr. Rochester, which takes place throughout a majority of the novel. Secondly, through St. John's degree of repression, which is blatantly obvious as he chastises his sexual urges. Shown explicitly when he says, "When I before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself, I scorn the weakness. . . . Reason not feeling is my guide" (400; ch. 32). The conscious act of repression and its association with cold imagery is exhibited by many of the characters. Cold imagery is shown through Charlotte Bronte's use of figurative language as she describes the negative feelings of sorrow, fear, heartache, and repressed passion. The coldness of weather is also widely used by Bronte to foreshadow the tribulations soon to be endured by the characters. Imagery of the cold is widespread in Jane Eyre and significantly contributes to the novel.