“Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation: that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace: as it was I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour” (Brontë 116)
Throughout the story, we see Jane Eyre indulge in numerous internal discussions, such as the discussion in the above quote. In this particular instance, Jane is reflecting on how some of the other students may be feeling during the frightful storm and she uses this reflection to juxtapose her own wild feelings. It is important to note that the narrator of the story, however, is a much older Jane Eyre, who is reflecting back on her youth and giving an autobiographical account. This narrating Jane is more experienced, developed, and possesses the ability to look in hindsight at her life. With this in mind, I now have a couple questions. Are Jane’s internal discussions a reflection of her thoughts at the time or are they a mechanism for narrating Jane to offer her own reflections regarding those points in her past? Since the story is told from the adult Jane perspective, how does this impact the credibility and reliability of the information provided to us, the readers?
