Themes are ideas that run all the way through a literary text. They are great to explore because you can analyse the writer's intentions: what have they done? Why? What are they trying to make the reader think and feel?
Professor Regina Buccola of Roosevelt University explains the symbols in Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre.
Professor John Bowen explains how Charlotte Brontë combines fairytale, Gothic techniques and realism to give Jane Eyre its unique power. Filmed at the Brontë Parsonage, Haworth.