Charlotte Brontë 

Charlotte was born in Thornton, Yorkshire in 1816, the third of six

children, to Maria and Patrick Bronte, an Irish Anglican clergyman. Her mother died of

cancer on 15 September 1821,

leaving five daughters, Maria, Elizabeth,

Charlotte, Emily, Anne and a son Branwell to

be taken care of by her sister, Elizabeth

Branwell.

In August 1824, Patrick Bronte sent Charlotte, Emily,

Maria and Elizabeth to the

Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan

Bridge in Lancashire. Charlotte

maintained the school's poor

conditions permanently

affected her health and physical

development and hastened the

deaths of Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who died of tuberculosis in June 1825. After the deaths of her older sisters, her father removed Charlotte and Emily from the

school.

At home in Haworth Parsonage Charlotte acted as "the motherly friend and

guardian of her younger sisters".She and her surviving siblings —

Branwell, Emily, and Anne – created their own literary fictional worlds and began chronicling the lives and

struggles of the inhabitants of their imaginary

kingdoms. Charlotte and Branwell

wrote Byronic stories about their imagined country, "Angria", and Emily and Anne wrote articles and

poems about ”Gondal”. The sagas they created were elaborate and convoluted

(and exist in partial manuscripts) and provided

them with an obsessive interest during childhood

and early adolescence which prepared them for

literary vocations in adulthood.

The room where Charlotte loved to spend almost her

whole day

Between 1831 and 1832 Charlotte continued her education at Roe Head

in Mirfield, where she met her lifelong friends and

correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. In 1833 she wrote a novella, The Green

Dwarf, using the name Wellesley. She returned to Roe

Head as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. In 1839 she took up the

first of many positions as governess to families in Yorkshire, a career she

pursued until 1841. In particular, from May to July

1839 she was employed by the Sidgwick family at their summer

residence, Stone Gappe, in Lothersdale, where one of her

charges was John Benson Sidgwick (1835–1927), an unruly child who on one occasion threw a Bible at

Charlotte, an incident which may have been the inspiration

for that part of the opening chapter of Jane Eyer in which

John Reed throws a book at the young Jane.

Charlotte's first manuscript, The

Professor, did not secure a apublisher,

although she was heartened by an

encouraging response from Smith, Elder & Co

of Cornhill, who expressed an interest in any longer works which "Currer Bell" might wish

to send.

A letter from

Charlotte Bronte to

Ellen Nussay

Charlotte responded by finishing and sending a second manuscript in August 1847, and six

weeks later Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, was

published. It tells the story of a plain governess (Jane)

who, after early life difficulties, falls in love with

her employer, Mr Rochester. They marry, but

only after Rochester's insane first wife (of whom

Jane initially had no knowledge) dies in a dramatic house fire.

Charlotte believed art was most convincing when

based on personal experience; in Jane

Eyre she transformed the experience into a novel with universal appeal.

Following the success of Jane Eyre, in 1848

Charlotte began work on the manuscript of her second novel, Shirley. The manuscript was

partially completed when the Brontë household

suffered a tragic series of events, the deaths of three family members within eight months.

Charlotte was unable to write at this time.After Anne's death Charlotte resumed writing as a way of

dealing with her grief,

and Shirley which deals with themes of industrial

unrest and the role of women in society was published in October

1849.

Without a doubt, Charlotte Brontë was progressive in her beliefs. In a

time when women were considered little more than social

adornments and bearers of offspring, Charlotte Brontë bravely contradicted society through her

writing. Her novels speak volumes for the oppressed woman; thus establishing Charlotte Brontë as

one of the first modern women of her time. To refer to Charlotte Brontë as a feminist would, however, be an insufferable

misrepresentation. Unlike George Sand, who by appearances and

her standard of living epitomized the nineteenth-century feminist, Charlotte Brontë withdrew from a

society that would not entirely accept her, and expressed her

stifled ideals through her words. Slight in size, perpetually modest, it was Brontës suppressed spirit

that gave way to her literary fantasies. She often likened herself

to others in her oppressed situation; the ugly daughter or

poor spinster, which she equated to slaves imprisoned by

circumstances beyond their control.

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