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 English
writer noted for her novel JANE EYRE (1847), sister of Anne Brontė
and Emily Brontė. The three sisters are as famous for their short,
tragic lives, as for their novels. In the past 40 years Charlotte
Brontė's literary stature has risen rapidly, and feminist critique
has done much to show that she speaks for oppressed women of every
age.
"'And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with
the Misses Reed and Mater Reed, because missis kindly allows you
to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money
and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and try
to make yourself agreeable to them.'"
(from Jane Eyre)
'A little, plain, provincial, sickly-looking old maid', is how
George Lewes described Charlotte Brontė to George Eliot. She was
born in Thornton, Yorkshire, in the north of England, the daughter
of an Anglican clergyman who moved with his family to Haworth on
the Yorkshire moors in 1820. After their mother and two eldest children
died, Charlotte was left, with her sisters Emily and Anne and brother
Branwell, in the care of their father, and their strict, religious
aunt, Elisabeth Branwell. To escape their unhappy surroundings the
children created imaginary kingdoms, which were built around Branwell's
toy soldiers, and which inspired them to create stories concerning
the fantasylands of Angria and Gondal.
"We wove a web in childhood, A web of sunny air."
Charlotte attended Clergy Daughter's School in Lancashire in 1824.
She returned home the next year because of the harsh conditions.
In 1831 she went to school at Roe Head, where she later worked as
a teacher. However, she fell ill, suffering from melancholia, and
gave up the post. Charlotte's attempts to earn her living as a governess
were hindered by her disabling shyness, her ignorance of normal
children, and her yearning to be with her sisters.
In 1842 Charlotte travelled to Brussels with Emily to learn French,
German, and management. Her attempt to open a school failed in 1844.
The collection of poems, POEMS BY CURRER, ELLIS AND ACTON BELL (1846),
which she wrote with her sisters, sold only two copies. By this
time the sisters had finished novels; Charlotte's first, THE PROFESSOR,
never found a publisher in her lifetime, but Emily's Wuthering
Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey were accepted by Thomas
Newby in 1847 and published the following year.
"Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not
religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last."
(from the preface to Jane Eyre)
 Undeterred
by rejection, Charlotte began Jane Eyre, which appeared in
1847, and became an immediate success. Charlotte dedicated the book
to William Makepeace Thackeray, who described it as 'the masterwork
of a great genius'. The heroine is a penniless orphan who becomes
a teacher, obtains a post as a governess, inherits money from an
uncle, and eventually marries the Byronic hero. It was followed
by SHIRLEY (1848) and VILLETTE (1853), based on her memories of
Brussels. Although her identity was well known, Charlotte continued
to publish under the psuedonym Currer Bell. Her tragedy, BELISAIOUS,
is lost.
In Jane Eyre, Charlotte uses her experiences at the Evangelical
school and as governess. The novel severely criticizes the limited
options open to educated but impoverished women. Jane's passionate
desire for a wider life, and her rebellious questioning of convention,
reflects Charlotte's own dreams. The gloomy hero, Mr Rochester,
represents a woman man: the ideal of masculine tenderness is combined
with a intensely masculine strength of character. Jane's discovery
at the altar that Rochester has an insane wife hidden in the attic,
is the most shocking plot twist in the novel. It was refreshed in
Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which tells the
story of Rochester's ill-fated Creole wife.
The title character from Shirley is an attempted ideal portrait
of Emily. However, she does not appear in the first third of the
book. Shirley is perhaps the first fully developed, independent,
brave, outspoken heroine in Victorian fiction, and she has become
a character type that has deeply influenced mass-market novels read
by women. Caroline Helstone, the other heroine, is a more conventional
figure. When Charlotte started to write the book, the four Brontės
were all alive and together at the parsonage; before the novel was
completed, a family tragedy shadowed the work.
Branwell, whose wildness and intemperance had caused the sisters
much distress, died in September 1848, Emily died in December of
the same year, and Anne the following summer. In 1854 Charlotte
married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died during
her pregnancy on March 31, 1855 in Haworth, Yorkshire.
For further reading: The Life of Charlotte Brontė by E.
Gaskell (1857); The Brontė's Web of Childhood by Fannie Ratchford
(1941); Passionate Search by M. Cromton (1955); Their Proper Sphere
by Inga-Stina Ewbank (1966); Weaver of Dreams: Charlotte Brontė
by William S. Braithwaite (1966); The Accents of Persuasion by
Robert Martin (1966); Charlotte Brontė by Winifred Gerin (1967);
The Bronte Novels by W.A. Craig (1968); The Brontes. The Critical
Heritage by, ed. by M. Allott (1974); Unquiet Soul by M. Peters
(1975); Myth of Power by Terry Eagleton (1975); The Early Writings
of Charlotte Brontė by Elfrida Vipont (1893); Charlotte Brontė
and Sexuality by John Maynard (1984); The Brontes Irish Background
by E. Chitham (1986); The Brontės and Their Background by Tom
Winnifrith (2nd ed. 1988); The Brontės by Juliet Barker (1994);
Chalotte Brontė by Lyndall Gordon (1994); Charlotte Bronte by
Diane Long Hoeveler, Lisa Jadwin (1997); Charlotte Brontė and
Victorian Psychology by Sally Shuttleworth (1997) - See also:
Jean Rhys.
Museums and places to visit: Brontė Society and Brontė
Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Keighley; Brontė Way - a forty mile
walk in four section to sites associated with the Brontės; Oakwell
Hall County Park, Nutter Lane, Birstall - house features as "Fieldhead"
in Charlotte's Shirley; The Red House Museum, Oxford Rd, Gomersal,
Cleckheaton - House appears as "Briarmains in Charlotte's Shirley;
Wuthering Heights Walk, a six mile walk to Top Withins, the setting
for Wuthering Heights.
Patrick Branwell Brontė (1817-1848) - collaborated with
Charlotte in creating the imaginary world of Angria. After failing
as a painter and writer, he took to drink and opium, then worked
as a tutor and assistant clerk for a railway company. In 1842
he was dismissed and joined his sister Anne at Thorp Green Hall
as a tutor. His affair with his employer's wife ended disastrously.
Patrick Brontė returned to Haworth in 1845, where he rapidly declined
and died three years later.
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