Diction

"Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured mine! may you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love!"(327).

In this passage Charlotte Brontë uses strong emotional words along with words that bring strong visions to our minds. Words such as scalding, heart-wrung, hopeless, agonized, and love all bring to our hearts strong emotions of despair. All but love bring pain, a deep dreadful pain that one does not hope to ever experience. Love is normally a pleasant feeling but when you are doing evil to the one you love, the connotation to love in this sense is bad. Words such as stormy, prayers,and instrument of evil all bring to our minds strong dark visions. Prayers being in this meaning she is on her knees begging and pleading with God.