passions and strikes John Reed when he physically bullied her by grasping her hair and shoulders. As her punishment, Jane is locked up in the red-room. The colour red is significant here - red, the colour of fire and heat, represents passion and fury, as fire embodies this. Here, fire imagery, in the form of the red-room with its pillars of mahogany" and "curtains of deep red damask", is used to represent, through physical manifestation, Jane's overly passionate nature. Most significant also, is the direct use of fire imagery in this instance. It is stated that "the room was chill, because it seldom had a fire"; this shows that Jane's punishment for being overly passionate is a chill, a coldness of emotion that seeks to temper this rash passion. One could perhaps also argue that the chill of the red-room represents the futility of Jane's passion at this stage in her life. She may be angry and passionate, but the response of Mrs Reed to this, as would be the response of society to Jane, is to lock out that warm passion, leaving a cold chill, or a being in keeping with strict social tenets instead. By putting Jane in the red-room without a fire, Mrs Reed has effectively shown the social limitations which weigh heavily against Jane in her search for expression of that passion and self. Water imagery is also commonly used to show what Jane's values are in the novel. Mr Rochester's attention to her three paintings soon after they meet, in fact, tell us much about Jane's values and concerns through the rich sense of imagery in them. The "green water" in the first painting, for example, represents death by drowning, as the woman is drowning in the water and the ship is capsizing. The image of "a swollen sea" carries with it expressions and expectations of impending danger. Jane, because of her passionate nature, sees water, representing a locking out of passion and emotion, as death itself. This is significant to our understanding of the them...
