Explore bird imagery in Jane Eyre

Throughout Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the protagonist is constantly described using bird imagery, which invokes the concept of freedom. The story follows Jane’s journey and her various struggles to be free from first her aunt, then her school and later from Mr. Rochester. Jane’s wish to escape her Aunt’s house at the start of the novel brands her a ‘devilish’ child and a constant outsider. She is caught reading 'Bewick's History of British Birds' at the start of the novel, which leads to her punishment. Her character is strongly linked to bird imagery from this point onwards, particularly as she is frequently 'caged' in houses and families that treat her as an outsider. Jane wishes to escape, to fly away, much like a bird, and so becomes entangled in a web of bird metaphors.
As the novel advances, the bird imagery becomes wrapped around the relationship between Jane and Mr Rochester. He instructs her not to 'struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation’. Jane later says, in what is undeniably the book's most famous line: ‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you’. At this point, the bird metaphor becomes more complex. Jane has been caged throughout the novel and in leaving Mr. Rochester's house she breaks free; she quite literally takes flight. In rejecting the image of a small caged bird, she is able to experience true freedom. Aspects of Jane's character parallel those of Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester's true wife, who is physically caged and restrained in the attic. By leaving Mr. Rochester, Jane exercises a freedom that Bertha never could and shows him that she is not 'a wild, frantic bird' but a 'free human being'. Therefore, bird imagery provides the framework for Jane's journey to freedom.