Preview

The Bronte Sisters

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
904 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Bronte Sisters
Three children sit in a circle playing with wooden toy soldiers. The world these children play in is not Earth, but worlds of their own creating. The children in this circle will grow up to be some of the best eighteenth century writers. It is no surprise that as a child Emily Bronte and her siblings had active imaginations. They created the worlds of Gondal, Emily and Anne’s creation; and Angria, Charlotte’s creation (White 12).
The world does not know much about Emily Bronte except what can be concluded from Charlotte Bronte’s autobiography (Winnitrith 111). She was born July 30, 1818 in Yorkshire, England. At the young age of thirty, Emily developed tuberculosis and died on December 19, 1848 (Magill 56). Her potential had yet to be reached. C.D. Merriman from The Literature Network said, “Many early works from her past were lost – only 3 personal letters exist from her possessions.”
Emily was influenced by many people including her mother and father. Her father, Reverend Patrick Bronte, was a school teacher (Magill 56). Patrick Bronte had a humble beginning; he went to Cambridge University and worked in order to pay for his stay. Her father was looked down upon for being middle class in a high-class school. Emily’s stories feature a strong value of education and deal with injustices of society, which is believed to have originated from her father’s troubles. (White 8)
“Emily’s mother, Maria Bronte died from internal cancer when Emily was only three,” according to The Victorian Web (Allingham). Kathryn White said, “The Bronte children felt the loss of their mother keenly, for though they never really remembered her. Her absence in their lives is reflected in the number of orphaned and motherless children who were featured in their early writings and novels.”(21) Despite the fact Emily never knew her mother; she characterized Catherine Earnshaw as having a similar sentiment about being more attached to the earth than to Heaven. (White 19).
In November

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    When we first hear of Miss Emily , it is the time of her death and funeral, attended by the whole town of curious men and women. Their attitude and reverence towards Emily sparks our interest, a sort of “ respectful affection for a fallen monument” (30). We begin to ask why was she such an important woman and what has caused such an intrigue in her fellow townspeople. The inquisitiveness of the town becomes our own , and we want to know the whole, complete story of Emily’s life. Beginning the story of Emily’s life with her death gives us an opportunity to wonder what made her such an iconic part of this town and the lives of her neighbors there.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The people of the town noticed the obvious lack of independence in Miss Emily’s life before her father passed. “We remembered all the young men that her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.” After the death of her father, she was faced with the reality of needing to carry responsibility for her own life. Miss Emily, finally free of her tormentous girlhood, suddenly became able to make choices for herself. Even with questionable acts, this character further demonstrated her independence by taking…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Alive, miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.”(391) The social class and her father fettered not only her behavior but also everything of herself. Without him she could not do anything except stay at home. She had been isolated from the outside world and the people whose social class was lower than theirs. “only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores.”(391) Her house was on behalf of her personality that she was noble, solitary and traditionally. Emily's decaying appearance matches not only the rotting exterior of the house, but the interior as well. Staying far away from people, gradually, she could not know how to get along with others. Being restricted by her family fame, Emily became much more autistic and did things unusual.…

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator had “Mornings of crisis and near hysteria trying to get lunches packed, hair combed, coats, and shoes found, everyone to school or Child Care on time […]” (44). Emily never really shared many things with her mother, she would tell her “everything and nothing as she fixes herself a plate of food out of the icebox” (51). Moreover, when the narrator saw Emily’s gift for comedy, she says that “[she] ought to do something about her with a gift like that – but without money or knowing how, what does one do?” (49). This demonstrates that the narrator have no intentions to help Emily to become successful or even to help her to pursue her passion.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Emily Carr lived a productive and fascinating life. Emily Carr was born December 13, 1871 in Victoria, British Columbia. Her parents Richard and Emily Saunders Carr were British immigrants who had settled in the small provincial town of Victoria. Richard Carr married Emily Saunders in England in 1863 and moved his young family to Victoria. (“Emily Carr: A Biographical Sketch”) Victoria was an expatriate British settlement, home to the Songhees First Nation and a significantly present population of Chinese workers and merchants. Richard Carr found success as a merchant and established a grocery and liquor store in Victoria. Emily Carr described her father as being very British. (“Biography Part 1”) Emily Carr grew up with a younger brother and four older sisters in a orderly household, where English manners and values were maintained. Emily Carr was a rambunctious child who enjoyed an active childhood “running through the fields and playing with the animals on her family’s land.” (“Emily Carr: A Biographical Sketch”) Carr enjoyed little companionship with her mother, who had tuberculosis and was frequently bedridden. Carr was was however extremely close to her father, before an incident in her adolescence. This incident remains unclear but Carr in her old age later referred to it as a “brutal telling”. This incident permanently destroyed their relationship. (“Emily Carr: A Biographical Sketch”) Carr’s…

    • 1876 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Southern Patriarchy

    • 1203 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The feminist theory can be shown through Emily’s dependence on her father both economically and psychologically in every aspect of her life…

    • 1203 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Emily Grierson was a sad and eclectic woman who isolated herself from her peers and society in general. She was born to a well-respected and prestigious family in the 1800s. Emily was a very stubborn woman who lived life on her own terms despite everyone’s scrutiny. After her father’s death she shuts herself away in her own home, living alone and closing her doors to society.…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Introduction: Emily Bronte was born in Yorkshire, England, July 30, 1818. At three years old, Emily was sent to Clergy Daughter’s School along with her three older sisters Maria, Elizabeth, and Charlotte where they encountered abuse described by Charlotte. Maria and Elizabeth caught Typhus which plagued the school and later died. Emily and Charlotte was pulled out after the Typhus swept the school. The remaining sisters and brother,…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Charlotte found the rigors of boarding school life harsh in the extreme. Food was badly prepared under unsanitary conditions and, as a consequence, outbreaks of “low fever” or typhus, forced the withdrawal of many students, some of whom died. Maria developed consumption while at Cowan Bridge and was harshly treated during her incapacitating illness, an incident Charlotte drew on in portraying Helen Burns's martyrdom at the hands of Miss Scratched in Jane Eyre. Patrick Bronte was not informed of his eldest daughter’s condition until February 1825, two months after Maria began to show symptoms; when he saw her, he immediately withdrew her from the school and she died at home in early May. Elizabeth was escorted back to Haworth where she died two weeks after Charlotte and Emily were brought home by their father on June 1.” “The loss of Elizabeth and Maria profoundly affected Charlotte’s life and probably helped shape her personality as well”…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I Stand Here Ironing

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages

    After Emily’s father left when she was only eight months old, she was forced into a life filled with abandonment as she was passed from caregiver to caregiver, whether it be the neighbors, various daycares, her father’s family, or the convalescent home as her mother continuously struggled to make enough money to support them. Without a nurturing environment to grow up in or a mother there to properly care for her, Emily instead became, “thin and dark and foreign looking” (Olsen 236). She also grew somber in nature, became jealous…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Miss Emily’s father plays a vital role in the development of her character that leads to her loneliness and isolation.…

    • 1905 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the light of this comment, discuss Bronte’s presentation of Helen Burns in the novel…

    • 918 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cited: llott, Miriam, ed. Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre and Villette: A Casebook. London: Macmillan, 1973, p78-111.…

    • 1545 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the nineteenth century, individuals, including Charlotte Bronte, were discriminated against because of their gender and role in society. Because she was woman who was succeeding in literature, she was judged. Bronte had to deal with the harsh society, just as Jane had to struggle with living with her rude family, the Reeds, and frustrating marriage with Rochester. Frank Magill confirms that, “One can imagine that the novel appealed to women then, and today, because it reflects the frustratingly limiting condition of women in the nineteenth century” (300). Women enjoy this novel because it clearly explains the hardships females faced back then and, unfortunately, still now. They are known to be complete opposites of men; being stereotyped as inferior and not important. Bronte is able to take real life scenarios that females experienced in the nineteenth century and apply those situations into Jane’s life.…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Victorian Era Femnism

    • 3192 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Imagine living in a world completely dominated by men. Imagine, just because of her sex, a woman is left powerless. Worst of all, imagine living a life of confinement, forced to be controlled by men with no chance of escape. Victorian women in nineteenth-century England lived this life. They had no respect, they had no power, and they had no freedom. In Charlotte Brontë’s, Jane Eyre, confinement of women is portrayed as the yearning to find the key to escape their red-rooms or attics. Through the characters of Mrs. Reed, Bertha Mason, and Jane Eyre, the typical Victorian women is shown along with their struggles to accept it.…

    • 3192 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays