Open Writing

From the commencement of Charlotte Bronte's novel the character of Jane Eyre holds us enthralled. The lonely child arouses the reader's heart-felt pity. Because we are readers we rejoice that she in turn is a book-lover, blocking out the cruel world by reading, not a book of fairy tales, but Bewick's History of British Birds. It is easy to respond to and sympathise with Jane. For it appears that almost everything conspires against her, and her tormentors are truly unpleasant.

After a particularly terrifying experience when she is locked in the dark in a room where her uncle died, Jane, overcome by terror, suffers a form of nervous seizure. Because of this Mr. Lloyd, the local apothecary is summoned; this is the man generally called in when the servants are taken ill.

After talking to Jane, Mr. Lloyd, a kind and perceptive man, realises that this is a child being subjected to punishment beyond bearing. Gently he questions Jane as to what she would like to do, and eventually she discloses that she would prefer to go away to school than live at Gateshead Hall with the Reed family, and this is what eventually happens.

On occasions Bessie, the nursery maid, appears sympathetic but is quite willing to see Jane subjected to what she surely must have realised was cruel treatment for a young girl. Locking a terrified ten-year-old away in a dark, funereal room for hours at a time is a horrific punishment. Jane's horror that she experiences in 'the red room' is the ultimate imaginative child's nightmare.

In this novel the outrage and anger felt by the child Jane Eyre is being recalled by the adult Jane Rochester, mother of children of her own.
Because this is a biographical novel, the information we receive is totally from Jane's point of view.

We are recipients of her deepest feelings, and the truth is that at times Jane sometimes appears less than appealing. In chapter four in her altercation with the hated Mrs. Reed the reader feels inclined to whisper in Jane's ear, "Don't push your luck, dear!" For a ten-year-old she is extremely vociferous and one might feel an unexpected twinge of pity in this situation, even for the rapacious Mrs. Reed.

Charlotte, like Anne and Emily, the other two Bronte sisters who also became authors, could hardly be considered an average Victorian child. Although Charlotte and Emily attended the Clergy Daughters' School, their true education was at Haworth Parsonage their home in Yorkshire. The Reverend Patrick Bronte gave all his children total freedom to read every book in his library. The Haworth parsonage was and remained the centre of the Bronte children's lives.

Their literary tastes ranged extensively through the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Sir Walter Scott and many of the Victorian authors. Their enthusiasm for current affairs led them to magazines and journals such as Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Fraser's Magazine and the Edinburgh Review. These young children pored over and absorbed every book available to them. They read from Aesop's colourful bizarre world and also with delight and wonder the tales of the Arabian Nights'.

The three girls and Branwell also created their own magic, miraculous world of books. In June, 1826, Patrick Bronte returned from a visit to Leeds with a box of twelve wooden soldiers that he had promised to Branwell. Around these toy soldiers the Bronte children wrote stories about Africa, creating an imaginary citadel called Glass Town. Then they created the Kingdom of Angria. Charlotte and Branwell did this in miniscule notebooks two inches by one inch in diameter.

Yet another narrative was written by Emily and Anne - 'The Gondal Saga.' This was a melodrama full of violence and phantasmagorical happenings. However, all this prodigious literary outpouring still contained much of a moral strain. This reflected their upbringing in a parsonage environment, situated in an isolated Yorkshire hamlet. The Bronte children were very much aware of their father's sermonising. However, these youthful writings also predicted the future romantic leanings of their fiction and future poetry of the three Bronte girls.

Presiding over this household was the forbidding figure of their redoubtable aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, who joined the household shortly after their mother's death. Elizabeth Branwell's strict Calvinistic leanings, with their threats of eternal punishment and the fiery furnaces of a vengeful God, must have been a powerful influence on the minds of these impressionable and intelligent children.

The strong familial attachments between the Bronte children are reflected by the unhappy nature of their later experiences in the world beyond their restricted Haworth environs. Branwell went to London to study painting at the Royal Academy in 1835 but stayed for only a few days. Later he failed miserably as a portrait painter in Bradford and as a clerk on the local railway. The girls were never very happy away from Haworth and missed desperately the company of their siblings.

During Charlotte's time in Brussels at the pensionnat run by Professor Heger she developed strong romantic feelings for the Professor. This was nipped smartly in the bud by M. Heger who wisely broke off the correspondence after Charlotte returned to England.

Charlotte had revealed her literary ambition by sending her poems to the poet Southey, who was interested in her work, and sent her helpful advice in return. When she discovered Emily's poems in 1845, again it was Charlotte who proposed creating a joint volume containing poems by the three sisters. Despite Emily's reluctance to publish, 'Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell' appeared in 1846, but sadly this passed virtually unnoticed by the literary public.

Again it was Charlotte who urged her reluctant sisters to publish their novels, which by that time they had all completed. 'The Professor', which reflected much of her experiences in Brussels was unfortunately rejected and did not appear in print until 1857, after her death. Encouraged by George Smith of the publishers Smith, Elder and Co., she completed and submitted 'Jane Eyre'. It appeared in October 1847, two months before Emily's novel 'Wuthering Heights' and Anne's lesser-known 'Agnes Grey'. Anne's second novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall', appeared a year later in July 1848.

These novels, particularly Jane Eyre, attracted a great deal of public attention, something that the previous volume of collected poems had so disappointingly failed to do. This recognition of their literary work should have made the publication of their novels all the more rewarding and exciting.

Tragically at this time however the family was in dire distress. Branwell's alcoholism, which had cast such a heavy shadow over 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall', led to his premature death in September 1848. This calamity was closely followed by the death of Emily. She too died of tuberculosis in December of the same year, longing for life and fighting tenaciously against encroaching death until the very end. The next year, in July, in Scarborough gentle Anne calmly and resignedly succumbed to the same deadly disease.

Charlotte survived, despite now having to cope with her almost blind, elderly father. In October 1849 she published 'Shirley' and in 1853, 'Villette'. This novel, like 'The Professor', also drew upon her life in Brussels.

Despite her acute self-consciousness, her life now began to broaden out considerably. Literary society began to accept this shy woman from a Yorkshire parsonage. In particular she found a friend in Elizabeth Gaskell, her future biographer. Mrs. Gaskell was not only a friend but also proved to be her helpful adviser.

In June 1854 at Howarth church Charlotte married the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate. This union came about after much fierce opposition from her father. One wonders why the Reverend Bronte begrudged his bright and brilliant daughter her longed-for share of love and happiness, this woman whose novels are bound with the bonds of love. The couple lived together with Mr. Bronte at the parsonage.

Charlotte died the following March, the result of catching a chill during early pregnancy.

Jane Eyre is a wonderful book; it is a tale truthfully told and was a pleasure to read again.