Again, a reference to a cramped and constraining existence and her desperate need to escape its shackles.   I had remembered the passionate relationship with Mr. Rochester but had forgotten the other attempt to bind her, when her Puritanical cousin relentlessly pressures her to accept a pitifully loveless and self-sacrificial future, nearly overwhelming her with sheer force of will.   She breaks away just in time.

And what a beautiful escape, with light breaking, relief falling and a plain without bounds spreading before her.

‘After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds.’

Source: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (London: Bounty Books, 2012 (1847)), p. 473

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