--> "[Impurities] thought to derive from organic matter"

--> Air was also thought to be polluted by "dirt, feces, and even perspiration"

--> Air had furthermore a foul smell back then (Museum of London)

Now let me share my answers with you:

• Foreshadowing with the help of environmental conditions:

• Jane speaks of an "all wintry blight and brown decay" (Bronte 58)

  • As the plants (nature) are sick and decaying, this forebodes the sickness and metaphorical decay of our characters.

• The day is "darkened by a drizzling yellow fog" (58), which is "dense" (58) and "penetrate[s] into the[] shivering frames" (58) of the "pale and thin" (58) girls.

  • The description corresponds with the Victorian view:

  • Miasma theory suggests that the containing agents spread through the air, "directly causing illness" (MoL).

  • After the fog is described and how it penetrates the bodies of the girls multiple coughs are heard. --> Connection between disease and fog shown

  • However, only the "sundry pale and thin ones herded together" (58) are affected. The strong girls still seem to be fit.

    • Victorians believed that "overcrowded slums" (MoL) were at the highest risk of falling ill. --> Ill girls sticking in herds together reflects that

Now let me give you a little insight into my findings:

• Fog was believed to be one of the main causes of death

  • Many gravestones in the early 19th century reported "fog related deaths" (Britannica)

  • Mist as a form of light fog is described as "chill as death" (Bronte 90-91) --> foreshadowing that the weather/air/fog will bring death to characters

  • "a torrent, turbid and curbless; it tore asunder the wood" (90-91)--> even more death --> if smth. as hard as wood cannot stand the torrent not even humans have a chance of survival

  • "ranks of skeletons" (90-91) --> forebodes many deaths due to the cold/winter/fog/bad weather conditions

    • deaths mostly "induced by weather and pollution" (Britannica) in Victorian era

Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one time."

Here are my results:

• "the cradle of fog" (Bronte 91) represents a place where fog likes to lay and to grow (like a baby in a cradle)

• "fog-bred pestilence" (91) shows the belief that disease is carried by fog, which reproduces and spreads more and more --> fits Miasma theory and the fear of the "polluted fog" (Britannica) which was thought to be deadly

• The fog "crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory" (Bronte 91) --> The smell of the fog, in the Victorian era penetrated through crevices and into homes and buildings (MoL). Thus, they believed that the death-bringing fog was in their homes making them ill.

  • Fog transforms "seminary into a hospital" (Bronte 91)

• "neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection" (91)

  • During the Victorian era people in London/England looked pale, and weak and breathed "heavily through their mouths due to their congested nasal passages" (MoL) --> were already ill/had colds and thought the cause for its worsening were the fogs