It has been proven evident throughout the history of literature that authors will tend to incorporate their own lives into their works. This is the case in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Although the novel is in itself fictional, Brontë invites readers into her private life by the way in which she writes her novel. Literary elements are often taken into consideration when determining the value of a literary work. However, they offer more than just layers of complexity to a work. Brontë uses countless metaphors to portray relevance to her own life. The ongoing comparison between the characters in Wuthering Heights and Brontë’s own life only exemplifies how often authors use their works to reflect their lives.
The never-ending question pertaining to Emily Brontë is “how can such a sheltered child write such scandalous stories?” (The New Republic). Emily Brontë grew up in Yorkshire, England. Her mother, Maria Branwell, succumbed to cancer at the age of thirty eight, leaving Emily motherless at the age of three. Her father, Patrick Brontë, was a clergyman who secluded himself from even his family. He was even known to eat dinner in his own room. Mr. Brontë never remarried, leaving himself to raise six children on his own. This upbringing led to Emily’s lack of familiarity with the outside world (Emily Jane Brontë).
Emily Brontë was the fifth of six children, all of which turned to literature as a comforting form of expression (The New Republic). Emily Brontë’s only friends were her siblings, yet she was extremely more unsocial and reserved (Emily Jane Brontë). Soon after beginning their education at Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge, two of Emily’s sisters contracted tuberculosis. Maria and Elizabeth returned from school...
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...rs. Wuthering Heights. New York: Random House, 1943. Print.
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Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, Anne Taranto, and George Stade. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. Print.
Gérin, Winifred. Emily Brontë: A Biography. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971. Print.
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Varghese, Dr. Lata Marina. "Stylistic Analysis of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights." IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science 2.5 (2012): 46-50. Print.
When a child is born into this unpredictable world, led by a Fate that depends well on what and how one plays their lives, they are usually taken care of by the one and only guardian blessed with the soul inside them: their mothers. Granted, that some may not have wished to be one so early, they were given to do so; with supposed adoring hearts and unbound love and careful nurturing, the role of a Mother in a child's life is important - not belittling a Father's, of course - and no matter how different one mother treats their child compared to another, their love is something a child will never forget. Yet, sadly, Brontë herself never had the chance to experience such a thing like most - if not other - children had. Her kindhearted mother, Maria Branwell, passed away from cancer at the young age of thirty-eight in September, 1821 (Online-lit.) leaving her six children and husband, Patrick Brontë, in a lost state. Withal, Charlotte's father worked hard for their peaceful - albeit isolated - life as a curator in Thornton, their hometown, but later moved on to Haworth and was appointed Reverend. Being born in Victorian times and has fair - or even more in-dept...
Charlotte “Jane Eyre” Bronte was born April 21, 1816. She was born the third daughter out of six children. In 1824, Charlotte and her older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth Bronte, enrolled in the Cowan Bridge Clergy Daughters’ School and obtained their education. Soon after Charlotte’s younger sister, Emily, joined them at the school, Maria and Elizabeth became very ill. Charlotte’s father, Patrick Bronte, requested for Maria and Elizabeth to be sent home to be taken care of. Charlotte and Emily were left to attend Cowan Bridge alone; however, this did not last long because they were soon requested home by their father as well. In the following year, Elizabeth and Maria both died of consumption. The death of these two beloved sisters took a toll on the Bronte family causing the remaining siblings to cling together for support and become best friends. Charlotte, her brother Branwell, Emily, and youngest sister Anne began to write epic stories and poems together, often set in the realm of the Kingdom of Gondal. This was the beginning of the legacy to be left by Charlotte Bronte. (Gerin, 169)
The Romantic period had a formative experience on the Brontes. In order to examine this formative experience, we must suppose first that the Bronte sisters had been exposed to many Dark-romantic/Gothic writings that had shaped their world-views and influenced their literary products. We will need to take a look, thus, at some of the Gothic-romantic works which certainly could have impacted the different ways in which the Bronte sisters chiseled their literary characters and created their fictional worlds.
Bronte, Charlotte. The Letters of Charlotte Bronte: 1829-1847. Ed. Margaret Smith. 2 vols. New York: Oxford UP, 1995-2000.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
With so many distortions, many readers may not appreciate Brontë's book. She takes common elements and greatly exaggerates them. She turns love into obsessive passion, contempt into lifelong vindictive hatred, and peaceful death into the equivalent of burning in hell. In doing so, she not only loaded the book with emotions, but vividly illustrated the outcome if one were to possess these emotions.
Emily Bronte was born July 30, 1818 in Thornton, Yorkshire, England. At the time when Emily was born there were a lot of changes going on in society: such as the Treaty between the U.S. and the U.K. that established the boundary between U.S. and British North America. Emily was the fifth child of Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell. Among her siblings were: Maria and Elizabeth born in 1815, Charlotte in 1816, Patrick was in 1817, and Anne was last in 1819. After Anne was born the family moved to the village of Haworth in February 1820, although described as an unhealthy place riddled with disease, Patrick had no choice because he was appointed Clergymen. A few months after they had moved to Haworth the family found out that Mrs. Bronte was falling ill from cancer, and in September 1821 Maria Branwell passed away. Patrick Bronte became even more secluded than usual, so the children were left all on their own to look out for each other. Patrick had set very strict rules for the children including what they were allowed to wear and even eat. In the spring of 1824, the children had gotten whooping cough and measles. Patrick Bronte thought that if they had a “change of air” they would recover faster, so he started looking for a school.
Immediately from the start Bronte’s character Jane is different. She is an orphan, mis-treated and despised by her family. She has no clear social position, is described as “less than a servant” and treated like one. A protagonist who one would assume had no characteristics worth aspiring too. Jane is displayed perfectly in her hiding behind the curtain. She is placed by a window, which beyond is icy and cold, contrasting immensely from the inside of the fire and warmth. A clear statement of the icy coldness of the family she has been put to live with, and her fiery and passionate nature which we discover th...
Brontë, Emily, Fritz Eichenberg, and Bruce Rogers. Wuthering Heights. New York: Random House, 1943. Print.
Brontë, E. (2009 [1847]) Wuthering Heights (ed. I. Jack, with an introduction by H Small), Oxford, Oxford University Press.
It was around this time when Emily Bronte began to write and publish her first works of literature. Her first worked she published was called “Gondal”, which was accompanied by her sister. Emily and her two sisters began to go into this business and published several poems together.
Charlotte lived a quiet life, being a “middle-class women in the mid-nineteenth century”, there was not an abundant amount of things she was able to do (Jane Eyre). She and her sisters were able to turn a bad situation into something positive. Brontë and her sisters Emily and Anne would fill their days at home with writing responses to what their father would bring home for his daughters from 1835-1851. Their mother, aunt and two of their sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, all passed during their lives, and they were able to continue on with their lives and keep on going. During the hardships in her life, Charlotte, Emily and Anne published a collection of poems under the name ...
Seichepine, Marielle. "Childhood And Innocence In Wuthering Heights." Bronte Studies 29.3 (2004): 209-215. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
Bronte's Use of Language and Setting in Wuthering Heights Between pages 15 and 18 there are identifiable ways in which 'Bronte' uses 'language and setting' to establish the characters and create a distinguishable atmosphere. In this essay, themes, genres and styles will be discussed to show how 'Bronte' establishes the characters; there will also be a discussion of the 'gothic' elements which Wuthering Heights contains. Many people would argue that the style of 'Wuthering Heights' is peculiar and complex, the power of Wuthering Heights owes much to its complex narrative structure and to the device of having two conventional people relate a very unconventional tale. Bronte importantly introduces the element of 'the supernatural' into chapter 3 which is an important technique as it grips the reader. Lockwood has come into contact with the ghost of Cathy, who died 18 years before, Some might argue that she is a product of Lockwood's imagination, and it is clear that Bronte has presented these facts in this way so that the reader can make up their own mind on the subject.
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, is not a book that can easily be viewed through one critical theory. However, by knowing the historical background of when Bronte developed her novel, readers are able to understand Jane Eyre on a deeper level. The Victorian era was a time of change, and what authors like Charlotte Bronte did was help increase the change by shedding light into problems in Victorian society. Jane Eyre touches on many of the issues in Victorian society like feminist issues, class struggles, and the relationship between Britain and its colonies. Not only can readers see how much society has changed, but also the similarities. By understanding the novel at a historical level, readers can understand the novel through the lense