Emily Jane Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë's life, though short and tragic, had an overwhelming influence on her work. Marked by violent emotional upheavals, her childhood on the Yorkshire moors provided the folk background prevalent in Wuthering Heights. She was born the fifth of six children on July 30, 1818, at Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire. In April, 1820, the Brontë family, consisting of Reverend Patrick Brontë, his wife Maria, son Branwell, and daughters Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, moved to the parsonage at Haworth. Emily never knew her mother, for Mrs. Brontë contracted internal cancer at the age of thirty-eight and died in September of 1821, when Emily was just three years old. Patrick Brontë never remarried. In 1824, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Emily were enrolled at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, located less than twenty miles from Haworth. In 1825, Maria and Elizabeth fell ill from consumption and returned to Haworth, where they soon died. Charlotte and Emily left Cowan Bridge and returned to Haworth.

In the autumn of 1825, Tabitha Aykroyd was employed as cook and housekeeper at Haworth. Her influence on the Brontë children, particularly on Emily, was monumental. Tabby, as she was known, was a native of Haworth and brought to the children the folklore of the Yorkshire moors:

She told of fairies that danced by the bed-sides in the moonlight, and of those who had seen them. When the peat glowed red on the kitchen hearth and shadows stretched across the stone floor, Tabby made the warm air seem alive with creatures of the fern and heather. (Simpson, 27)

The imaginations of the Brontë children, fired by Tabby's fascinating folktales, encountered the door, in 1826, to further development when the Reverend Mr. Brontë presented twelve wooden soldiers to Branwell. The four siblings created characters and islands around these toys and developed an oral literature that would later be transformed into poetry, constituting the well-known "Gondal" saga that Emily and Anne continued long after Branwell and Charlotte lost interest. Of special note is Emily's choice of names for her special heroes: Sir Walter Scott and the Lockharts. The literary reference seems to indicate an acquaintance with literature, an idea reinforced by Charlotte's "History of the Year 1829":

We take two and see three newspapers a week.