Surviving and Thriving in a Difficult World
Jane, Lizzy and Cathy, with their constrained choices, are like people stranded on a desert island with a small set of tools. They can’t use the tools to turn the island into a metropolis or to build a submarine, but they still have choices about what to do with the few tools they have: Build a raft? Build a shelter? Make a fishing net? They learn to use their tools through much toil and trial and error. They make mistakes, and Cathy does not survive. But their efforts remind us of the importance of self-respect, responsibility and freedom. And their relationships remind us of the importance of passion, selflessness and equality in love as in life.
Part V: Special Features
Behind the Scenes With Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë came from a remarkable family that was blessed with great talent and cursed with terrible health. When I say “terrible health,” I mean that Charlotte outlived her mother, and the aunt who raised her, and all of her five siblings, none of whom left children behind. This is especially depressing since Charlotte was only thirty-eight at the time of her death. Frankly, every sentence of a Brontë biography could easily end with these words, “…and then she/he died.”
Charlotte’s mother, Maria, died of cancer when Charlotte was six years old. Charlotte was the middle child of six. In order, they were: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Patrick Branwell, Emily and Anne. A few years after her mother’s death, Maria, Elizabeth, Emily and Charlotte went to boarding school, one that featured bad food and bad living conditions overall (resemblances to Lowood Institution, in Jane Eyre, are not coincidental). Maria and Elizabeth battled both typhus and consumption and died six weeks apart. Maria was said to be very imaginative and intelligent, and she is often said to have been the inspiration for Jane Eyre’s Helen.
The remaining Brontë siblings were educated at home, with the exception of some time together at Roe Head School, where Charlotte became a teacher. While at home, the siblings immersed themselves in stories of the magical worlds that they created, Angria and Gondal.
One of the most interesting periods in Charlotte’s life is the time she spent in Brussels as a pupil teacher. Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels in hopes of improving their foreign-language skills. Their goal was to open a school near their father’s home in Haworth (they were not successful, because no one wanted to live in Haworth, which was a large but impoverished village with well water that was contaminated by runoff from the cemetery, hence everyone dying all the time). They went home when the aunt who had raised them died, but Charlotte went back to Brussels later to finish her studies. Charlotte was fascinated by her teacher, Constantin Héger, and she seemed to have fallen deeply in love with him. Unfortunately for Charlotte, Héger did not have a mad wife in an attic who would conveniently perish—he had a sane and healthy wife who was very much alive and very much annoyed. Charlotte left Brussels without a romantic partner, but with material for her books The Professor, Villette and, of course, Jane Eyre.
When Charlotte returned home she discovered that she, Emily and Anne had all been secretly writing poetry. They self-published a book of poems (it only sold two copies), and then attempted to publish novels. A publisher accepted Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey right away, but Charlotte’s The Professor was turned down. She quickly gave the publisher Jane Eyre instead, and it was huge success. It got good reviews, although once the truth came out that the author was a woman, it was criticized for being “coarse.” It was not only critically acclaimed, but it was also a bestseller and has never gone out of print.
And that, dear friends, was pretty much the last happy year in the lives of the Brontë family. Branwell, Emily and Anne died less than a year apart. Branwell, who was an alcoholic, died first (of alcoholism and tuberculosis), then Emily and Anne died, also of tuberculosis. The Brontë family was down to Charlotte and her father.
Charlotte had a few relatively calm and happy years after that. She published more books, travelled to London and enjoyed her fame. In 1854, she married and became pregnant. In 1855, she died, possibly from tuberculosis, or typhus, or possibly from complications from the pregnancy (she was pregnant when she died, with uncontrollable, constant, vicious morning sickness that left her unable to hold down any food) or perhaps from some horrible combination of all three. The only Brontë to make it to old age was Charlotte’s father, who spent the rest of his days being cared for by Charlotte’s widower.
A quick glance at the bibliography will tell you that my research on the lives of the Brontës is not scholarly in nature. However, if you are interested in a reliable, thorough biography of the Brontës, I can recommend The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Barker. Be aware that the biography of Charlotte Brontë that was written shortly after her death, entitled The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Elisabeth Gaskell, has been widely discredited.
Behind the Scenes with Jane Austen
The image many people have of Jane Austen is that of a provincial spinster who lived a sharply constrained life in a small hamlet. Actually, Jane was a vivacious woman with many suitors (although she never married), who loved travel, theater, shopping and dancing. She traveled extensively throughout England and especially enjoyed going to London for shopping and the theater. Although she initially published her books under a pseudonym, she was eventually recognized for her work under her own name and achieved quite a bit of fame and prestige for her writing.
Jane was born in 1775. She was raised in a large family, consisting mostly of boys, and who took in boarding students (more boys). It is perhaps not surprising, given the preponderance of boys, that Jane was exceptionally close to her only sister, Cassandra. Jane and her sister both survived typhus at their boarding school (this seems to be a theme—a typhus and tuberculosis epidemic at the Brontës’ school killed two of the Brontë sisters). For the most part, Jane was educated at home.
Jane’s travels were limited to England and Wales due to the Napoleonic Wars, but she had many overseas relatives who kept her informed of global affairs, including several who travelled to India in search of husbands and a cousin who married a French aristocrat and had to flee during the French Revolution (the cousin’s husband, I’m sorry to say, did not flee and was beheaded). Jane also had brothers in the navy who told her about their travels.
Jane’s first writing was for the benefit of her family. She wrote plays that the family performed during holidays and get-togethers, and rather ribald parodies of popular books of the time. When she published her novels, she did so either under a pseudonym or under the name “A Lady.” However, it soon became common knowledge, at least amongst Jane’s peers and amongst the aristocracy, that Jane was the author. The Prince Regent was a fan, which proved awkward for Jane who disapproved of him. This did not prevent her from dedicating a book (Emma) to the Prince Regent, under political and financial pressure.
Jane’s books were quite popular during her life (with the exceptions of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, both of which were published after her death). Even at the time, the most popular book was Pride and Prejudice, and people loved her books because the characters were familiar and relatable, without the melodrama of the romantic novels that had been in fashion.
My primary source for information about Jane Austen’s life is the biography The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, by Paula Byrne. This quote from the biography has great relevance to those of us who feel a deep attachment to Jane Austen’s characters:
It has become fashionable in our own time to be dismissive of “Janeites” who speak of Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy and the rest as if they were real people, so it may come as a surprise to find that the supremely self-aware ironist Jane Austen considered, if playfully, her fictional creations as flesh and blood figures. In conversation with her family…she gave afterlives to characters in her novels. She suggested that Jane Fairfax dies young in childbed, that Kitty Bennet marries a young clergyman and that the large sum of money Mr. Norris
gives to William Price is One Pound. According to the family memoir, she thought of fictional characters as people she knew: “Every circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all that was ever said and done in the cedar parlor, was familiar to her; and the wedding days of Lady L./ and Lady G. were as remembered as if they had been living friend” (88)
The cause of Jane’s death is not definitively known, although it is most commonly thought to have been Addison’s disease (Hodgkin’s lymphoma is another possibility). She died in 1817, at the age of forty-one, after many years of poor health, and is buried in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire, England.
Behind the Scenes with Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë is famous for writing Wuthering Heights and dying young. And honestly, that’s almost everything we know about her other than the details of her life that emerge from the Brontë family story (see: “Behind the Scenes with Charlotte Brontë”).
Like her sisters, Emily left home several times, but never for long. When she went away to school, Charlotte sent her home after three months due to concerns about her health. She tried teaching, but found it exhausting, and she lived for a while in Brussels with Charlotte, but was homesick. She seems to have enjoyed staying home, wandering the moors, and being with animals—with humans she was terribly shy.
Emily was very close to her brother, Branwell. He died at the age of thirty-one of alcoholism and the family favorite, tuberculosis. Emily caught a bad cold at his funeral and died four months later at the age of thirty. She refused medical care until the very end. A true procrastinator, her last words were, “If you will send for the doctor, I will see him now.” Emily is thought to have died from tuberculosis, but there is speculation that her tuberculosis could have been worsened by anorexia nervosa, since she often went for long periods of time without eating.
Although she only published one book, Wuthering Heights, it became one of the most influential and controversial books in literature. Reviewers praised the visceral power of the writing but were appalled by the content. The book was not as popular among readers as Jane Eyre when it was first released, but it was a reasonable success in terms of sales. The Brontë sisters published their first books under the names Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell. They chose these pseudonyms because they were neither specifically male nor female. Ultimately, a rumor started that the three authors were really the same person, at which point the sisters made their identity public. Since then, readers have been mystified that a woman, especially one as isolated as Emily, could invent a story as violent and sensual as Wuthering Heights.
Learning about Emily’s life is complicated because everything we know about her was filtered through her big sister Charlotte. Charlotte was very concerned about Emily’s image because Wuthering Heights was so controversial. Charlotte presented an image of Emily as a mystical conduit through which visions flowed beyond her control. Charlotte guarded Emily’s image so closely that she is suspected of destroying Emily’s writings about Gondal, some of her diaries and letters, and portions of a second novel. All we have left is Wuthering Heights, but it’s an astounding legacy all on its own.
Trivia
Jane Eyre
• I combed the internet for juicy tidbits for you all, but oddly, no one seems to fall in real-life love on a Jane Eyre set. This may be because, as Michael Jayston said, “It’s not that romantic performing love scenes at 8 a.m. with a props guy holding a hot fan right next to you to keep your lips from freezing” (“About the Actors to have played Edward Rochester,” The Enthusiast’s Guide to Jane Eyre Adaptations, http://eyreguide.awardspace.co.uk/rochesters.html).
• Charlotte Brontë dedicated the second printing of Jane Eyre to William Thackeray. Since he had a mentally-ill wife and had just published a book about a governess who has a relationship with her employer (Vanity Fair), this caused quite a scandal (Lizzy Enfield, “Book dedications: so few words, but such big stories,” The Telegraph, January 25, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/books-life/7073767/Book-dedications-so-few-words-but-such-big-stories.html).
• Charlotte was the only one of the Brontë progeny to marry.
• Sorcha Cusack, who played Jane in the 1973 miniseries, had no major television experience and thought that, as a result, her performance was rather “flat” (“Vanished Into Thin Eyre,” Jane Eyre – The 1973 BBC Miniseries, http://janeeyre73.awardspace.co.uk/publicity.html).
• Susannah York, who played a glamorous Jane in the 1970 film with George C. Scott, could not understand why people thought she was too pretty to play Jane (“Vanished Into Thin Eyre,” Jane Eyre – The 1973 BBC Miniseries, http://janeeyre73.awardspace.co.uk/publicity.html).
• Zelah Clarke, who played opposite Timothy Dalton in the 1983 version, believes that playing Jane ended her acting career. Despite the post-Jane success of many actresses, Clarke maintains, “Everyone remembers the Rochesters but no one recalls the Janes.” (“Zelah Clarke – the forgotten star of Jane Eyre,” BritMovie, http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/actors-actresses/95914-zelah-clarke-%96-forgotten-star-jane-eyre.html).
• Michael Fassbender, who plays Rochester in the 2011 movie, wanted to do the film because his sister and mother love the book (Vicki Reid, “Jane Eyre: Michael Fassbender Interview,” The Telegraph, August 29, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/8706510/Jane-Eyre-Michael-Fassbender-interview.html).
• Here’s some personal trivia for you: Charlotte Brontë and I are about the same height (I’m four feet, ten inches tall and she was four feet, nine inches tall) and Charlotte died on my birthday. Coincidence? Well, yes—but neat. (Juliet Barker, The Brontës, Wild Genius on the Moors [New York: Pegasus Books, 2012)
Pride and Prejudice
• Pride and Prejudice (the novel) was published in 1813, anonymously. It was bought by the publisher Thomas Edgerton for £110 and copies sold for eighteen shillings (Jen Doll, “200 Years of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Book Design, The Atlantic Wire, January 25, 2013, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/pride-and-prejudice-200th-anniversary-covers/60978).
• If you’re having trouble selling a manuscript, take heart: the first publisher to which Austen submitted the manuscript rejected it without even reading it! (Jen Doll, “200 Years of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Book Design, The Atlantic Wire, January 25, 2013, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/pride-and-prejudice-200th-anniversary-covers/60978).
• Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice when she was roughly the same age as the character Elizabeth Bennet (Lizzy) (Jen Doll, “200 Years of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Book Design,” The Atlantic Wire, January 25, 2013, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/pride-and-prejudice-200th-anniversary-covers/60978).
• Keira Knightley was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Lizzy Bennet in the 2005 film. She was the third-youngest person to be nominated for the award. (“Keira Knightley,” Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keira_Knightley).
• Rupert Friend and Keira Knightley dated for several years following the 2005 film. He played Mr. Wickham. (Shari Weiss, “Keira Knightly and Rupert Friend Split after Five Years Together”, New York Daily News, January 13, 2011, http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/keira-knightley-rupert-friend-split-years-article-1.153982)
• Bride & Prejudice was directed by Gurinder Chadha. She was born in Kenya, to parents who were born in India. She grew up in Britain and is married to a Japanese-American man. Many of her films involve cross-cultural themes, including Bend It Like Beckham, which starred Keira Knightley in her pre-Elizabeth Bennet acting days (“Chadha, Gurinder (1960-),” BFI Screenonline, http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/502103).
• Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth dated briefly while making the 1995 miniseries (“Colin Firth,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Firth).
• Susannah Harker, who plays Jane in the 1995 miniseries, was pregnant during the time the minis
eries was filmed, but the cut of the Regency dresses, combined with some creative use of shawls, concealed the pregnancy (“Pride and Prejudice Trivia,” Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112130/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv).
•The 1940 film version was shot in black and white because all the Technicolor film available had been used for Gone With the Wind (Jessica Andrews, “Voice: 200 years of Pride and Prejudice,” British Council USA, January 25, 2013, http://usa.britishcouncil.org/pride-and-prejudice).
Wuthering Heights
• Emily Brontë kept some reviews of Wuthering Heights in her desk. While many reviewers praised the passion in the book, others were not impressed. My personal favorite, from Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, states, “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters is a mystery” (“Contemporary Reviews of ‘Wuthering Heights,’” The Reader’s Guide to Wuthering Heights, http://wuthering-heights.co.uk/reviews.php).
• Emily loved animals—many people said she related to animals better than people. Her most famous pet was a mastiff named Keeper (“Emily and her dog, Keeper,” The Brontë Sisters, http://kleurrijkbrontesisters.blogspot.com/2011/06/emily-and-her-dog-keeper.html).
• In 1997, a first-edition of Wuthering Heights sold for £114,000 (Toby Waine, “How to make a killing from first editions,” The Telegraph, November 20, 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/2819787/How-to-make-a-killing-from-first-editions.html).
Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn Page 11
