Why is the gothic genre important in Jane Eyre?What does this genre do? I know that this helps emphasize some of the main points in the novel, but...

The Gothic genre elements in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre is primarily related to its broader generic affiliation within the Romance novel or the Bildungsroman. The Gothic elements are restricted mostly to the Thornfield Hall episode and the Roichester-Jane relation in the novel.

1. Thornfield Hall with its Gothic architecture draws attention to the space as a towering representation of the patriarchal authoritarian space of entrapment. The social angle of the new social upliftment of the landed gentry is another issue.

2. The character of Bertha Mason is another Gothic dimension of Thornfield, built up as Jane's schizophrenic racial other and suspensefully developed by the maid Grace Poole.

3. The Gothicization of Bertha the black woman from Africa has a colonialist strain in it, as Jean Rhys's rendering of the novel from Bertha's perspective highlights.

4. The feminist subversion of Gothic damsel in distress genre becomes problematic as the black woman is sacrificed at the level of hysteria to make way for the white woman as a prototype of success.