Jane Eyre (post 5) looks in a mirror and paints a self-portrait. But if she has the mirror, why does she need the portrait? Why would the mirror be unreliable?

Jane has saved Rochester’s life in a fire. He has praised her. So she has fantasized that he might want to marry her. But she knows better, and to bring herself back to reality whenever she gets her hopes up, she paints “Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain” (1, p. 137).

But why couldn’t she just look in the mirror whenever she needed to be reminded that she is plain? Regular readers of this blog know the answer, since mirrors have been mentioned in so many previous posts in regard to multiple personality, from Poe’s “William Wilson” to Garcia Marquez’s “Dialogue with a Mirror” to Putnam’s Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder.

In short, people with multiple personality may sometimes see one or another of their alternate personalities when they look in the mirror. And alternate personalities often look different from each other. [added Nov. 1, 2015: See post 1, which mentions that when Jane was in the red room, she looked in a mirror and saw, not herself, but a strange being.]

If Jane had multiple personality, then when she would look in the mirror, sometimes she might see an alternate personality who is pretty.

If Jane did not have multiple personality, she would not have needed the self-portrait of her plain self, and could have dispelled any fantasy by simply looking in the mirror.

1. Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre. New York, W. W. Norton, 2001.