Charlotte Bronte :: Free Essays Online

Charlotte Bronte Charlotte Brontà «, born in 1816 at Thornton, Yorkshire, is known for her short but fulfilling career as a novelist in Victorian England. Suffering tragedies within her lifetime that quickly would have restrained many from prosperity, Charlotte was capable of redirecting the pain of her afflictions into a creative energy that she used to etch an existence that provided her with fame. Tragically, she suffered the loss of her mother at the very young age of five, and was then forced to endure the deaths of her four sisters and her brother throughout the following years of her life. Understandably, much of her existence "was spent in mourning, in a struggle against the grim realities which surrounded her -- abandonment, brutalization, emotional deprivation, death and the search for reality, for her own identity" (Cody). Eventually, these very ordeals become the foundation for Charlotte's success. After a number of unfulfilling career attempts as an educator, Charlotte proposed the collaboration of a collection of poems to her two surviving sisters. They accepted, and in 1846, the trio published their first book, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Due to the unfavorable reactions to female writers at this time, Charlotte, Emily and Anne felt it necessary to assume male pseudonyms. They utilized the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton, respectively, in order to disguise their gender. This attempt did not aid in the public notice of the amateur novelists, so thinking it better if they separated, continued to write exclusively while retaining their male pseudonyms. In the same year Charlotte completed her first independent creation titled The Professor, which she was unable to publish during her lifetime. However, this did not dishearten the artist. She immediately began writing a second novel, which in the following year would yield such fame that Charlotte herself was amazed. This is the famous text of Jane Eyre, an autobiographical account of Charlotte's own life, which not only solidified Charlotte's position among her literary companions but also secured the achievement that Charlotte so desperately sought. The form that the plot of Jane Eyre follows is commonly referred to as a Bildungsroman. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms defines this as "a novel that recounts the development (psychological and sometimes spiritual) of an individual from childhood to maturity, to the point at which the main character recognizes his or her place and role in the world" (31).