Charlotte Bronte

1816 - 1855

Charlotte Bronte was born in Yorkshire, living nearly all of her life in the village of Haworth where her father, Patrick, was appointed perpetual curate in 1820. The many superficial biographers of the Brontës, as well as ax-grinding critics, have attempted to portray Patrick as an aloof, moralistic patriarch. Actually, he was a compassionate man who suffered the death of his wife in 1821, devoting himself then to his children. Patrick proved a loving and liberal-minded father who stimulated his children’s love of reading; he did not even discourage their enthusiasm for the notorious Byron. By the time Charlotte was thirteen she could recite many passages from Byron by heart.

The melancholic strain in all the writings of the Brontës has certainly much to do with the loss of their mother as well as with the deaths of their sisters, Maria and Elizabeth,in 1825. But their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, came from Penzance to live at the Haworth Parsonage. In the words of the Brontës’ best biographer Juliet Barker, “Aunt Branwell’s arrival was a godsend.”

It was in the atmosphere of an intellectually adventurous, morally clear-eyed, though emotionally fragile household that Charlotte Brontë and her siblings began to shape themselves as writers. Besides Byron and the other Romantic poets, a key influence, particularly for Charlotte, was the often sensational Gothic literature of the day. Charlotte evolved as an author by reshaping the Gothic tradition. Robert Heilman has given a superb account of the process:

“Charlotte manages to make the patently Gothic more than a stereotype. . . Though only partly unconventional Jane is nevertheless so portrayed as to evoke new feelings rather than merely exercise old ones. . . . [We are led] away from standardized characterization toward new levels of human reality, and hence from stock responses toward a new kind of passionate engagement. Charlotte moves toward depth in various ways that have an immediate impact like that of Gothic. [But] Jane’s strange, fearful symbolic dreams are not mere thrillers; [in them] Charlotte is plumbing the psyche, not inventing a weird décor.”

Texts

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Bell on Jane Eyre ( doc | pdf )
Farrell on Jane Eyre ( doc | pdf )
Governess ( doc | pdf )