The fire in the bedroom also foreshadows the fire towards the end of the novel, also set by Bertha, in which Thornfield is destroyed and Rochester burned and blinded.

In setting fire to Thornfield, Bertha begins by torching the hangings in the room next to her own, but then kindles Jane’s old bed. Her anger seems to focus on sexual jealousy of her rival.

The lightning strike on the horse-chestnut shows fire being used as a warning: Rochester has just proposed to Jane but he is not free to marry her (chapter 23, Volume 2, Chapter 8) It is Bertha who causes the fire that both kills her and maims Rochester.

Scholar Trevor Hope has noted that the “triumphant conflagration of Thornfield Hall in Wide Sargasso Sea may at one level mark a vengeful attack upon the earlier textual structure”. The destruction of Thornfield Hall occurs in both novels; however, Rhys epitomises the fire as a liberating experience for Antoinette.

Fire is a frequent symbol in the novel that develops various meanings throughout. It represents passion, destruction, as well as comfort. Jane Eyre as a character is full of passions that she cannot always control and the fire helps represent this aspect of her identity.

That night Jane is disturbed by strange noises, and a ‘demoniac laugh’ (p. 173) outside her door. She discovers that Rochester’s bed curtains are on fire and that he is nearly unconscious from smoke inhalation. She wakes him, manages to put out the fire and save his life.

When, at the end of chapter one, Jane defends herself against her cousin John Reed’s beating, Jane’s Aunt Reed punishes her by locking her in what Jane calls “the red room.” The red room is the room in which Aunt Reed’s husband, Jane’s biological uncle, died; unsurprisingly, Jane and her cousins believe it to be …