Charlotte Brontë, 19th Century Poet & Novelist
Charlotte Brontë was born to Patrick and Maria Branwell Brontë on April 21, 1816, and she was one of six children. Her father was a parishioner, who worked at the town church where the family lived in Haworth, Yorkshire, England. Maria Branwell died in 1821, leaving her eldest child at the age of seven. Consequently, most of the later-born children, including Charlotte, were too young to remember their mother.
The Brontë family came from poverty, and society expected women of their class to become governesses. In 19th century Britain, a governess was a woman who was hired to live with a higher class family to teach their children. Thus, the Brontë sisters went to school expecting that they would grow up to become governesses. The children first attended the Cowan Bridge School, a school that was established to cater to the “wants of the poorer clergy.” The school’s purpose was “intellectual and religious improvement” for its students and to provide a “plain and useful education,” so that the students may “maintain themselves in the different Stations in Life to which Providence may call them” (Leeds Intelligencer, pp. 1). However, the conditions at Cowan Bridge were less than satisfactory: the school was unsanitary, and the food was of poor quality.
During the 19th century, tuberculosis, then known as consumption, was a common and fatal illness. Therefore, Patrick Brontë was not all that surprised to learn that Maria, his eldest daughter, had contracted consumption from an outbreak at Cowan Bridge. She was brought home from the school, only to die a couple months later in May of 1825. A short time after, Elizabeth fell ill and had to be brought home as well. Elizabeth died in June of the same year, and suddenly Charlotte was the oldest child in a single-parent household. Charlotte rose to meet her new responsibilities. She took on a more active role in her sibling’s lives, a role that she would continue to hold throughout their lives and literary careers.
To keep themselves entertained, the children made up stories together and expanded their imaginations. They created the fantasy worlds of Angria and Gondal, which often became the subject of the poetry they wrote in their youth. Charlotte and her siblings enjoyed periods of prolific poetry and prose writing, but much of Charlotte’s writing was put on halt when she enrolled at another school, Roe Head. Whereas Charlotte had been considered a mediocre student at Cowan, her talent was recognized at Roe Head, where she became a top student in her class. Charlotte understood that by attaining a good education, she had a greater chance of becoming a governess, which was essentially her only career option as a woman. Charlotte may have dreamed of becoming a writer, but she understood that she would not have the same freedom if she were writing for a paycheck than she would if she were writing for pleasure. Consequently, there were many periods of Charlotte’s life wherein she would sideline her passion for writing in order to focus on earning a living.
After graduating from Roe Head in 1832, she became a teacher for the school in 1835. In her personal letters of correspondence, however, Charlotte made it known that she abhorred being a teacher. In one letter from 1836, she wrote of her pupils, “If those Girls knew how I loathe their company they would not seek mine as much as they do” (Barker, pp. 255). In another letter, Charlotte would go even further as to express, “The thought came over me am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness the apathy and the hyperbolical & most asinine stupidity of these fat-headed oafs and on compulsion assuming an air of kindness, patience and assiduity?” (Barker, pp. 254). Charlotte makes it clear that it would be quite the understatement to merely say that she hated being a teacher, but she submitted to the job for a wage, as she had no other means to support herself.
Charlotte finally decided that she would try to become a published writer in 1836, desperate to fulfill her greater passion in life. She sent a letter with some of her poems to a famous poet laureate of England, Robert Southey, in hopes that he would provide her feedback and give advice. The response she received, unfortunately, was emblematic of British societal views on women’s roles at the time: “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it even as an accomplishment and a recreation” (Robert Southey, 1837). In other words, Southey said that women should apply themselves only to their domestic tasks, which, if done properly, leave no time for taking pleasure in writing.
However, Charlotte gave no heed to Southey’s misogyny. Between 1837 and 1838, she wrote more than 60 poems and drafts, some of which would be considered her best works. However, the poems were not published until nearly a decade later, when Charlotte could refine them. Although she was later revered as the author of Jane Eyre, rather than known for her poetry, Charlotte’s poetical works should not go unmentioned. Some have even argued that her poem “Pilate’s Wife’s Dream” is a “much better poetic monologue” than Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s better-known “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” (Poetry Foundation).
Charlotte left Roe Head in 1838 to become a governess, but she still held on to her aspiration to become a professional writer. Since she loathed being a teacher, it was no surprise that Charlotte also held much antipathy for the role of governess. When she had enough of the job, she looked into founding a school with her sisters, Emily and Anne. As they would be running the school together, the trio decided it would be best if they went back to school to become more proficient in speaking French, Italian, and German, courses which they wanted the school to offer.
Charlotte and Emily enrolled in a school in Brussels that was run by Madame Claire Zoë Heger and her husband, Constantin. Neither of the sisters felt truly comfortable at the school, so Emily eventually decided to drop out, leaving Charlotte in Brussels. Constantin was Charlotte’s literature teacher, and he gave her advice on her writing. Charlotte developed an infatuation for Constantin, which was unfortunate because Constantin was married and uninterested. Brontë confessed some of her feelings to Constantin, and upon learning that her love was unrequited, she withdrew from the school in January of 1844.
Nevertheless, Charlotte continued to write to Constantin, and some of her letters are painfully forthright and honest. At one point, Charlotte wrote to Constantin, “Forgive me then Monsieur if I take the step of writing you again — How can I bear my life unless I make an effort to alleviate its suffering?” Becoming even more desperate to hear back from Constantin, she pines for his acquaintance: “I will not resign myself to the total loss of my master’s [Constantin’s] friendship — I would rather undergo the greatest bodily pains than have my heart constantly lacerated by searing regrets. If my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely I shall be absolutely without hope — if he gives me a little friendship — a very little — I shall be content — happy, I would have a motive for living — for working” (Popova, 2016).
The Brontës advertised their school in the paper, but no one enrolled. The failure of their effort to establish their own school coupled with Charlotte’s humiliation with Constantin sent Charlotte into a despondent melancholy. Fortunately, she became revitalized after stumbling upon a notebook of Emily’s poetry. Charlotte had “a deep conviction that [the poems] were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write” (Wuthering Heights, 1850). Charlotte was able to convince Emily that the sisters should publish their poems. Anne, Emily, and Charlotte compiled their own poems in a collection entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. The sisters agreed to publish the work pseudonymously (Charlotte being Currer, Anne being Acton, and Emily being Ellis) under masculine-sounding names since the collection was likely to face more scrutiny if the public knew it was written by three women.
Many of the poems that Charlotte contributed to the collection were refined versions of those that she wrote from 1837 to 1838 after she received Robert Southey’s letter. Although it is generally agreed upon that Emily’s poems were superior to those of the other sisters, many critics still regarded Charlotte’s works favorably. Charlotte was enthusiastic about her new prospects for a literary career, and even before Poems was published, she had already started a new novel called The Professor, which was based on her experiences with Constantin. In writing the prose novel, Charlotte realized she was interested in writing more novels, and she quickly started working on Jane Eyre after finishing The Professor.
Charlotte decided to contact different publishing firms to release The Professor. She met with the firm of Smith Elder, but they said that they would not publish her novel. However, they agreed if she wrote a stronger book, they would publish it. This offer motivated Charlotte to hustle to finish Jane Eyre. When it was finished, she took it to the publishers, and it was in print only a few days later.
Jane Eyre (1847) became Charlotte’s most well-known book. The novel was revolutionary in its use of the first-person point of view to illustrate Jane’s experiences in an unprecedented subjective manner. Although the extremely personal use of the first-person is much more prevalent today, this was rare in the Victorian Era in which Charlotte was writing. For this reason, Charlotte was credited with being “the first subjective novelist” (Threapleton, pp. 1). The book was also celebrated for its feminist themes, which were considered extraordinarily progressive for the time period, as well as its critique of Britain’s rigid social hierarchies and of the hypocrisy that permeated the upper classes.
Despite the novel’s popularity, Jane Eyre received its share of scathing critiques, many of which were fastidiously focused on trivial details. For instance, when Charlotte simply wrote that Jane was learning to “truss game and garnish dessert-dishes,” one review by Elizabeth Rigby responded that if the author of the novel was a woman, then the woman apparently had “long forfeited the society of her own sex” because she thought that “no woman trusses game and garnishes dessert-dish with the same hand” (McNees, pp. 53). Furthermore, a review from The Christian Remembrancer of April 1848 references a conversation between two characters in Jane Eyre and claims that the banter’s “artificiality exposes the lower caste of the author” (Dr. Davies, pp. 566). The scrutiny that many of the critics place on the anonymous Currer Bell partially reveals why Charlotte was wise to use a pseudonym and avoid such direct harassment.
Charlotte’s sisters also tried their hand at writing novels; Emily published Wuthering Heights in 1846 under the name of Ellis Bell, and Anne published Agnes Grey in 1847 under the name of Acton Bell. Unfortunately, Wuthering Heights would only become fully appreciated much later, whereas Jane Eyre was a relatively immediate success. The family’s fortune did not last long, however. Tuberculosis once again plagued the Brontës, taking Charlotte’s brother Branwell in September of 1848, Emily in December, then Anne in May of 1849.
Charlotte would go on to publish Shirley in 1849 and Villette in 1853, neither of which, however, would garner as much recognition as Jane Eyre. Charlotte eventually married a man named Arthur Bells Nicholls, who worked as her father’s curate in the church. Charlotte initially rejected his proposal, but after further courtship, she believed that she was in love with him. They married in the year 1854, when Charlotte was 38. Charlotte became pregnant, but she died during her pregnancy, possibly from tuberculosis or hyperemesis gravidarum, severe vomiting from pregnancy. She passed on March 31, 1855, leaving behind a legacy of resilience and defiance of societal expectations.
by Margaret Jones
References
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Birmingham, Meredith. “Biography of Family.” Bronte Family: Biography, 2008, www.brontefamily.org/history.html
Brontë, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë. “Biographical Notice.” Wuthering Heights, Thomas Cautley Newby, 1850.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics, 2006.
“Charlotte Brontë.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charlotte-bronte
G., Weiss. “The Death of Charlotte Brontë.” Obstetrics and Gynecology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1991, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1923177/
Holland, Nick. “The Marriage of Charlotte Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls.” Anne Brontë, 2 July 2017, www.annebronte.org/2017/06/29/the-marriage-of-charlotte-bronte-and-arthur-bell-nicholls/
“Jane Eyre and Other Novels.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Bronte/Jane-Eyre-and-other-novels.
“Leeds Intelligencer.” Leeds Intelligencer , 4 Dec. 1823, pp. 1–4. The British Newspaper Archive, www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000193/18231204/018/0001
McNees, Eleanor Jane. The Brontë Sisters: Critical Assessments. III, Helm Information, 1996.
Popova, Maria. “Charlotte Brontë’s Beautiful and Heartbreaking Love Letters of Unrequited Affection.” Brain Pickings, 21 Mar. 2016, www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/21/charlotte-bronte-love-letters-heger/.
Southey, Robert. “Kerwick 12 March 1837.” Received by Charlotte Brontë, Letter from Robert Southey to Charlotte Brontë, 12 March 1837, 12 Mar. 1837, pp. 1–4, www.bl.uk/collection-items/letter-from-robert-southey-to-charlotte-bronte-12-march-1837
Sutherland, John. “We Owe It to Ms Brontë to See Her Heroine for the Plain Jane She Was.” London Evening Standard | Evening Standard, Evening Standard, 15 Apr. 2016, www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/john-sutherland-we-owe-it-to-ms-bronte-to-see-her-heroine-for-the-plain-jane-she-was-a3226511.html
Threapleton, Mary M., and Charlotte Brontë. “Introduction.” Jane Eyre, Airmont Books, 1963.
Waugh, Jo. “The Brontës Didn’t Die from Melancholy, Weather or Death Wishes — They Died from TB.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 28 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/bronte-sisters-emily-charlotte-anne-branwell-death-contagious-tb-tuberculosis-romantic-a8595516.html
