" A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hay-field and corn-field lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods which twelve hours since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now spread waste, wild and white as pink-forests in wintry Norway" (300).
Jane has just been informed of Mr. Edward Rochester's previous marriage to Bertha Mason, a murderous lunatic who he has kept in his attic and never legally divorced. Jane was to be married to Mr. Rochester that very morning until Bertha's brother came forward to inform the minister of the illegality of Jane and Rochester's marriage. Jane knew nothing of her fiance's previous engagement and is enormously distraught. Charlotte Bronte's imagery depicts the startling contrast between the two recent moods of Jane. In actuality, it is summer at Thornfield which adequately depicted Jane's blossoming love for Rochester and her hopes of marriage. Now that Jane's aspirations and positive mood have been dashed to pieces, Bronte vividly depicts the beautiful summer scene of Thornfield changing to a harsh and unforgiving picture of solitary winter at the gloomy estate. Jane feels alone and hopeless at this point as all she has ever desired has been violently ripped away from her.