Quote 7
"If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again. […] I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved." (1.6.50, 52)
Here Jane is responding to Helen Burns, who argues that you should "return good for evil," "turn the other cheek," "love your enemies," and all that sort of good Christian forgiveness stuff.
Jane (remember she’s only ten at this point) can’t quite agree with this; she doesn’t see any reason to "bless them that curse you," because then they’ll get away with it! Jane’s childhood ideas of justice are strict and exact—more like the Old Testament "eye for an eye" laws of retaliation than Helen’s New Testament charity. It’ll be interesting to see whether Jane’s ideas change over time and, if so, exactly how.
Quote 8
Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?"
But the answer my mind gave—"Leave Thornfield at once"—was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester’s bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. (3.1.1-5)
Jane’s moment of great ethical crisis turns (in her mind, at least) into an allegorical scene in which Conscience and Passion start brawling, and Conscience is the bully. It’s interesting that Jane knows immediately and certainly what is morally right in this situation—what’s difficult isn’t to know what she has to do, but to make herself do it.
Quote 9
"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."
"Did you see her face?"
"Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass."
"And how were they?"
"Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"
"Ghosts are usually pale, Jane."
"This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?"
"You may."
"Of the foul German spectre—the Vampyre." (2.10.73-81)
If we subtract Jane’s ignorance and fear from this weird description, we figure out that Bertha has a dark-colored face, large lips, and black eyebrows. A little later in the novel, we learn that Bertha’s mother was Creole, which means that she had a multiracial background. So Jane is using a supernatural creature, the vampire, as a metaphor to describe a woman of color.
By depicting Bertha’s features in monstrous, supernatural terms, Jane characterizes herself as "afraid of the batlike undead" instead of "afraid of racial difference." Yeah, that’s the way to deal with your fear of the unknown: turn it into something from a horror movie. (For a reading of what’s going on with the horror-movie stuff here, see the discussion of Quote #9 in "The Supernatural" section.)