At times when Jane is depressed or emotionally down she expresses it through the natural environment such as the "penetrating rain"(Bronte 39) or the "raw twilight"(Bronte 39) of Gateshead. "But, more often she paints nature in her more kindly moods, and endows a sensitivity to beauty in birds and flowers, hills and brooks."(Cole 107) These reflective changes in mood help express her tension of the very inanimate and repressed Victorian age. Although Maggie Berg states that "Jane clings to the conventions of Victorian realism and only symbolizes previous settings to explore the possibilities of realism."(Berg 93) This is understandable since much of Jane's encounters with the natural world are marked by "sad sky, cold gale"(bronte 39) which is the realism of the Victorian age's emotional effect on her. As well as the natural feelings towards her surroundings, Jane expresses a childlike attitude which is rivaled by the conventional stature of Blanche Ingram. Her relationship with Rochester and how Blanche interferes is exemplified by their dislike for each other. Blanche represents the conventional woman and Jane represents the natural woman. Although Jane's romantic qualities are more subceptable she believes that Blanches high status and beauty are of interest to him. With the "probability of a union between Rochester and the beautiful Blanche"(Bronte 182) a feeling of remorse is of Jane for ever thinking of being some "importance to him in any way."(Bronte 183) The Victorian qualities of the "very type of majesty: she was accomplished, sprightly"(Bronte 196) created to offset Jane's romantic attractiveness to Rochester. This tension between Jane and Blanche is more one-sided towards Jane since Blanche has no real idea of her affection for Rochester. With Blanche unaware and possibly in favor of Rochester to marry, "Jane feels as though the new foundations on which she had begun to build a sense of herself are being torn down."(...
