Lecture 13.Bronte Sisters

In 1846, joint publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; Between Oct. 1845 and June 1846, Wuthering Heights was written and published in Dec. 1847; In 1848, she died with no conspicuous recognition of herself as a writer and her works.
Autobiography
Jane, like her creator Charlotte, never succumbs to the forces trying to manipulate and hold her in leash. Jane is the author’s means of recapping and reliving her own life in a vicarious manner. Hence the emotional involvement that the novel coerces the reader to experience.
Compared with Charlotte
Unlike Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights met with more incomprehension than recognition; Unlike Charlotte, she had no close friends, wrote few letters, and had few but strong loyalties; the vein of violence; stoicism, and of mysticism in her personality have given rise to many legends of few certainties; Emily will be permanently remembered for her masterly fusion of romance and realism, while Charlotte for her shrill didacticism.
Theme
Charlotte's works are all about the struggle of an individual’s consciousness towards self-realization, about some lonely and neglected young women with a fierce longing for love, understanding and a full, happy life. But brought up with strict orthodoxy, Charlotte would usually stick to the Puritanical code. The key words regarding the theme of Jane Eyre must include suffering, love and growth.
Emily Bronte (1818—1848)
Emily’s Life
From 1824-5, Emily briefly attended the school at Cowan Bridge with Charlotte, then, was educated largely at home; She was even more intensely attached than her sisters to the moorland scenery her works evokes so vividly; In 1838, governess at Law Hill; In 1842, spent nine months with Charlotte in Brussels, studying French, German and music;
Formal Features
The first person narrative exhibits the Victorian intimacy between the writer and the reader, endears the story to readers. Five dramatic phases Gateshead: undefeatable spirit Lowood: will to success Thornfield: capacity for passion and self-assertion Norton: through the ordeal of an emotional upheaval Ferndean: reenergizing power of spirit and character



There is the symbolism of the novel to consider, for example, the sun and the moon, representing the male and female principles respectively, and the two planets meet at Ferndean as the two protagonists do. The Gothic Atmosphere, the melodramatic elements, etc.
1842, Charlotte and Emily went to study languages at Brussels, where she alone returned in 1843 for a further year; fell deeply in love with M. Heger; 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; 1846, The Professor written; published in 1857; 1847, Jane Eyre; 1848, Emily died; 1849, Anne; 1849, Shirley; 1853, Villette;
1854, She married her father’s curate, A. B. Nicholls, after much persistence on his part and hesitation on hers; She died a few months later of an illness; Emma, a fragment, published in 1860.
Characterization of Rochester
As he first appears, Rochester might be viewed as cynical, arrogant and swashbuckling. A dissolute rake as he used to be, passion still burns under a cool rational surface at the bottom of her soul, and he exhibits the will to life and happiness and the readiness to meet life squarely in the face.
Summary
Jane Eyre is a typical Victorian book. There are abuses and manifestations of evil, but man is still spiritually strong enough to challenge and overcome these and comes out winner. It is a world radically different from that of her sister’s Wuthering Heights.
Charlotte Bronte (1816— 1855)
Charlotte’s Life
Daughter of Patrick Bronte, an Irishman, curate of Haworth, Yorkshire; 1821, her mother died, leaving five girls and one boy to her aunt Elizabeth Branwell; 1824, all except Anne sent to a Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge (portrayed as Lowood); Two eldest sisters died there, Charlotte and Emily brought home with her health greatly impaired; 1831-2, Charlotte was at Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head,where she returned as a teacher in 1835-8; 1839 and 1841, governess with the Sidgwick family and the White family respectively;
Characterization of Jane
Jane exhibits the resilience of the human spirit and its indomitable nature. She refuses to submit to the overwhelming odds of negative circumstances. Both practical and realistic, she has, nonetheless, that human zeal and exuberance in her bosom that shines forth the grandeur of the persistent human quest for light through an otherwise ambient gloom until she finds it at the end of tunnel.