What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question – why I thus suffered; now at the distance of – I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 2. Looking back at her imprisonment in the red room as a child, Jane describes her mental turmoil over being punished that day by Mrs. Reed for acting in self defense. While she is depressed by her solitary confinement, she is also stirred by the emotions of the rebel slave who wants to fight back – “all my heart in insurrection.”