"...I faced wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up, black and riven: the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed--the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree--a ruin but an entire ruin" (280).
In the garden at Thornfield there was a great chestnut tree. This tree is the very spot which Rochester and Jane declared their love for each other. The day after they had declared their love, though, the tree was split in half by a bolt of lightning. The tree symbolizes Jane and Rochester's love and the trials it will undergo. The now split tree illustrates that Jane and Rochester's love will appear to be shattered by a seemingly fatal event, like the lightning bolt that is normally fatal for trees. Yet the chestnut tree still lives despite the blow and Jane and Rochester's love will survive too. In the end, Jane and Rochester's "firm base and strong roots" will bring them back together again to be "a ruin but an entire ruin". Their relationship will be whole again but it is no longer the vibrant and passionate love that it once was.