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GCSE English Literature · key term
A feeling that something, often something troubling, is going to happen.
Used by AQA, Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas
Paper 1
A feeling that something, often something unpleasant, is going to happen.
Revise: The supernaturalAt the opening of Chapter 21, the adult narrator declares, “Presentiments are strange things!” A presentiment is a feeling that something is about to happen. The exclamation shows Jane’s continuing fascination with experiences that resist explanation: her mature perspective does not simply dismiss every childhood belief.
Paper 2
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A feeling that something, often something troubling, is about to happen.
Chapter 21 begins with Jane considering presentiments, sympathies and signs. She remembers Bessie’s belief that dreaming of children foretells trouble. Jane’s repeated infant dreams precede news of John Reed’s death and trouble at Gateshead.
Paper 1
Revise: The supernaturalThe dreams can be interpreted as presentiments, but they also express understandable fears: separation, vulnerability and the instability of Jane’s apparently secure future. The child might represent her vulnerable younger self or the emotional burden she carries. These readings can coexist: Brontë uses Jane’s anxiety to anticipate the plot without requiring readers to accept every dream as literal prophecy.
Component 2
An uneasy feeling that something, often something harmful, is going to happen.
Revise: The supernaturalA presentiment is a feeling that something is going to happen, often a feeling of approaching trouble. At the opening of Chapter 21, the adult Jane declares, “Presentiments are strange things!” She treats presentiments, sympathies and signs as mysteries, showing that her later perspective does not dismiss every unusual experience as childish superstition.
