Such dread as only children can feel

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“Such dread as only children can feel”: Childhood
trauma in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
After the scary incident in the red room, Jane from Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" says, "The whole night felt
terrifyingly long for me; my ears, eyes, and mind were all tense with fear. It was the kind of fear that only
children can truly understand" (Brontë 20). The book is full of unsettling feelings, and what's interesting is
how these feelings and images work together to express trauma, especially how a child experiences it.
What stands out is Jane saying that the fear she feels is "fear as children only can feel." This emphasizes a
specific kind of fear that belongs to children. When we take a closer look at the red room incident, we see that
it connects to two ideas from the 1800s: the idea of "the child" as something fixed and understandable, and
the way people dealt with and showed shock or "trauma," both physically and mentally.
In the early to mid-1800s, when people talked about kids and
difficult experiences, they usually didn't connect the ideas. The way
doctors and society thought about "children" and "trauma" was
separate. Back then, the idea of "childhood trauma" didn't really
exist until later in the century. Jill L Matus, who studies this, says
that the word "trauma" isn't just a medical idea. It's also connected
to what society thinks about pain, who's responsible, and what can
be done to make things right.
In the 1800s, doctors didn't see "trauma" the way we do now. They thought of it more as a physical problem,
like a wound. It changed when doctors started to believe that intense and sudden harm to the body was
connected to the nerves. This is when they came up with the idea of "nervous shock." Jane, in her story after
the red room incident, uses this medical talk. She says her experience "gave my nerves a shock" and talks
about her "racked nerves." She even mentions feeling the effects for a long time, saying, "I feel the
reverberation [of the shock] to this day."
This idea that shock can stick around in your body and mind, making echoes long after it happened, matches
what Victorian doctors were starting to think. They believed that strong feelings could change the way the
brain works and affect how people feel later on. Jane's experience of "fearful pangs of mental suffering" as
an adult, even though the scary thing happened when she was a kid, shows that childhood trauma can have a
lasting impact on how grown-ups think and feel.

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When Jane talks about the shock she felt in the red room, she's saying that it somehow
stays in your body and mind for a long time. It's like the feeling echoes or reverberates,
even months or years after the scary event. This idea connects to what doctors in Victorian
times believed. They thought that strong emotions could leave lasting marks in your brain,
creating new pathways that affect how you think and feel later on. So, when Jane says she
still feels the echoes of the shock, it's like she's experiencing the long-lasting impact of that
scary moment.
The idea of "the child" as a separate, self-contained thing from adults was pretty new in the 1700s. It means
seeing a kid as a clear, understandable thing that grown-ups can shape. In the 1800s, this idea about children
changed. It wasn't just about being innocent or having a blank slate, as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
suggested. Instead, they started seeing kids as more complex and sometimes unsettling.
The study of child problems didn't really kick off until people accepted Sir James Crichton-Brown's essay in
1860. He said that kids' nervous issues came from both physical and
physiological stuff. Charles West, in 1868, added that kids' feelings were
stronger and less controlled than in adults.
Charlotte Brontë seems to get ahead of this idea in "Jane Eyre." Jane, as a
child, couldn't fully understand or express her strong feelings. She says,
"children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings." This connects to
what people were curious about in Victorian times—the idea that kids could
feel really scared, which didn't fit the usual image of happy and innocent childhood. Jane's descriptions of her
intense emotions during and after the red room incident show this. She felt suffocated, desperate, and
consumed by terror. This gives us a glimpse into how Victorian society grappled with the idea of kids
experiencing strong and extreme emotions.
The day after the red room incident, Jane feels not just physically weak but also deeply unhappy. She
describes this as an unbearable sadness that makes her cry silently. She connects this mental misery to her
troubled nerves, saying they are in such bad shape that calmness or joy doesn't make them feel better. This
connection between the mind and nerves, suggesting that they are closely linked and affect each other, talks
about a concern in Victorian times: the relationship between the mind and the body.
During the Victorian era, many believed in keeping the mind and body separate. They thought the "higher
faculties" like reason and will were different from the "lower faculties" of sense and emotion. But Charlotte
Brontë challenges this idea in "Jane Eyre." She shows moments where strong emotions and physical reactions
are so connected that it shakes up the idea that the mind is always in control.

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When Jane sees a ghostly light in the red room, she not only feels intense emotions but also has strong
physical reactions. Her heart beats fast, her head gets hot, and she hears things. She is overwhelmed with
sadness and sobs uncontrollably. In moments like this, Jane can't keep a clear line between her mind and
body, challenging the idea that the mind is always in charge. This happens again when she's terrified by Bertha
Mason's scary face in Thornfield. In both situations, Jane becomes unconscious
from fear, showing how the mind and body are closely connected in moments of
intense emotion and distress.
After the red room incident, Jane feels the effects of the trauma in her daily life.
For example, when she tries to find comfort in reading "Gulliver's Travels,"
everything changes. The once magical and fascinating pictures now seem eerie
and dreary. The giants become scary goblins, the little people turn into frightening creatures, and Gulliver
seems lost in dangerous places.
For Jane, a child already imagining mysterious and grim landscapes with ghostly figures, something that used
to bring her comfort and wonder is now twisted. The book she once loved becomes tainted by an experience
she can't fully understand or put into words. As an adult, she reflects that her understanding and feelings
were not fully developed at the time. Still, the lasting effects of the trauma start to show up in her everyday
life. In a way, Jane becomes like Gulliver, a lonely wanderer forever changed by a traumatic experience that
she never fully processes but always carries with her.
For Jane, who was already thinking about spooky and mysterious places with ghost-like
figures, something that used to make her feel safe and amazed now looks strange and
twisted.
Charlotte Brontë's decision to have adult Jane talk a lot about the scary experiences of her childhood, using
the language of psychiatry, makes "Jane Eyre" a powerful example of how early books represented childhood
trauma. When it was first published, people praised the book for showing real and natural feelings inside a
person (Shuttleworth, Charlotte Brontë 3).
By connecting with the ideas about kids and trauma from the 1800s and showing how these ideas influence
each other, "Jane Eyre" shows how literature can shape and guide the way people think about child
psychology. Jill L Matus adds that literature is crucial in understanding trauma because the idea of trauma is
shaped by the culture and history of the time. In this way, "Jane Eyre" becomes an important book in the
history of how people thought about childhood trauma in the early to mid-1800s.