A Comparison of Charlotte Bronte Biographies
Over the years, there have been many biographies written about Charlotte Bronte. Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Bronte has been regarded as the standard work. Winifred Gerin's biography, Charlotte Bronte: The Evolution of Genius (published in 1967) was the first to include new information on Bronte. Gerin says, "It is paradoxical that the standard work is still Mrs. Gaskell's Life. This remains a great biography, but published two years after its subject's death it suffered from the inevitable limitations thus imposed . . . and was not bettered by immediate followers" (xiv). Gerin felt that "the main contributions to Bronte studies in this century have been on the editorial plane" and sought to write a factual, unbiased biography (xiv). Lyndall Gordon's biography, Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life, took a feminist view, which was a different view from that of all previous biographies. Each biographer was affected by the cultural views of women of the time. Since Jane Eyre is seen as a reflection of Bronte’s life, the view of Jane Eyre has also changed with the times. In her biography, Gaskell sought to hide Bronte's excess passion and blamed it on the tragedies she suffered, whereas Gerin recognized Bronte 's passion as a part of her personality that contributed to her writing, and Gordon embraced it as the most important aspect of Bronte 's life.
In June of 1855, Mrs. Gaskell received a letter from Reverend Patrick Bronte, on behalf of himself and Bronte's husband, Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls, asking if she would write a biography of Charlotte Bronte. Ellen Nussey, Bronte's friend, had written to Patrick Bronte and Nicholls concerned with her friend's reputation and some speculations made by the press. Ellen Nussey demanded that these speculations be challenged. Had the Bell brothers (Charlotte, Emily and Anne's pseudonyms) been three separate people? Were they male or female? According to Gaskell, people began wondering if the "author [of Jane Eyre] forfeited the right to keep the company of respectable women" (vii) because of her coarseness ("by which Victorians meant vehemence and passion") (Gordon 347)? Ellen suggested that Gaskell, a friend of Bronte’s and an established author, write Charlotte's biography.
In writing the biography, Gaskell used her own notes and letters describing her meetings with Charlotte Bronte. Patrick Bronte provided a skeleton biographical outline (not always accurate in detail) of himself and his family (Gaskell xiii).
Billy Bishop’s path to greatness was not an easy one. He encountered many challenges throughout his young life that recognized him as a fiercer fighter pilot and a true hero. Billy Bishop faced an incredibly tough task to achieving his dream of becoming Canada’s greatest ace. Bishop had a tough life at Owen Sound Collegiate. He would be the subject to many jokes and preferred the company of girls. However his anger and fists won him acceptance on the school ground. He was a good natured boy born on February 8th, 1984. In 1911, at the age of 17, his parents sent him Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario due to his mediocre marks in school which his father knew would not allow him to get accepted to the University of Toronto. He was not an academic student and in his third year of high school was found cheating on a class exam which would later be the subject to many controversie...
The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States marked a tragic historical moment in American history. The president was fatally shot by a sniper while traveling with his wife, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally’s wife in a presidential motorcade at 12.30 pm on Friday, November 22, 1963. JFK was pronounced dead shortly after rushing to Parkland Hospital, where a tracheostomy and other efforts failed to keep him alive. Although Lee Harvey Oswald, a former United States Marine was convicted of the crime, the purpose behind the assassination remained inclusive as Oswald’s case never came to trial as he got shot to death two days later by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub operator in Texas. The assassination raised many questions and theories concerning the murder. As Oswald’s motives remain unknown, many scholars and investigators yearned to find the key to this mysterious crime, and came up with plausible theories searching for motives behind the assassination. While some straightforwardly blamed Oswald for the murder, claiming Oswald’s personal motives as the cause and supported the theory of the Lone Gunman, many developed more critical theories concerning conspiracies connecting the involvement of Cuba, Russia, the Central Intelligence Agency and the 36th President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson. The Warren Commission was established by President Johnson to exclusively investigate the assassination. The Commission published a detailed report and concluded that Oswald acted alone. The deficiency of the Warren Commission’s evidence to support its theory along with the cordial relationship between JFK and the CIA refute both the Lone Gunman theory and conspiracies involving the CIA in...
On November 22, 1963, at 12:30 in the afternoon, President John F. Kennedy was shot at and killed while participating in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The most important question that arises from this incident is ‘Who killed President John F. Kennedy?’ This is an issue which has been debated by scholars, The Government, and even common people alike. Many people seem to feel that it was a conspiracy, some large cover-up within a cover-up.
Commission, Warren. The Official Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964.
According to the Warren Commission report, “Texas School Book Depository employee Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed John F. Kennedy from the building’s south-eastern most sixth-floor window” (Reitzes). At first the public supported the conclusion of the Warren Commission, but as information began to surface about the details of how the investigation was flawed people began to have doubts. Jacob Cohen, a university professor, stated that over the years up to 80 percent of people polled said they had doubts about the Warren Commission’s conclusions (Cohen). Over the years there have been many people who have research the information surrounding Kennedy assassination, and inconstancies in the final reports have led them to believe that there was more to the issue than the report exhibited.
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)
...e was three gunshots. After the shots were fired, there were many Americans rushing to the Grassy Knoll including the Dallas Police showing that they heard shots from the Knoll area.
"Charlotte Bronte as a 'Freak Genius'", David Cecil in Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyreand Villette (A Casebook Series) ed. Miriam Allot.
...o”(79). The men knew that Rat needed to kill the animal in order to cope with the loss of his friend. The platoon understood that “…it was a question of pain”(79) not sanity that Rat was trying to figure out. Everyone has a breaking point of how much they can handle. For Rat, the way of dealing with his problems presented itself in the killing of the Buffalo, for others it was humor and daydreaming.
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.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
There are many stages throughout the book in which the reader can feel sympathy for Jane Eyre; these include when she is locked in the Red Room, when Helen Burns dies at Lowood, and when she and Mr. Rochester are married the first time.
1. The Warren Commission was a team of people chosen to examine the assassination of John F. Kennedy (Rubinstein 2).
Based upon the findings of the Warren Commission appointed by none other than Lyndon B. Johnson. The Warren Commission here by concludes “The shots which killed President K...
Charlotte was born into a family of five siblings- Maria (1813), Elizabeth (1815), Patrick Branwell (1817), Emily (1818), and Anne (1820). The following year after moving to Haworth, Mrs. Bronte died from cancer on September 15th. Now being the motherless, eldest child, it forced Charlotte to take on a position of leadership and some form of responsibility. However, as a way to cope with the loss of her mother, Charlotte created her own literary fictional worlds and imaginary kingdoms. In 1826, Mr. Bronte brought ...