Нет комментариев 17.10.2006

Author .::. Ninka

Electricity and hot water have been cut off in our house from the very morning today, thus preventing me from doing all usual routine work. That’s why I took a blank notebook and started fulfilling the promise I gave to Mazoo, - writing about Jane Eyre miniseries.

I’ll speak in a roundabout way, beginning with the author. It’s well-known that “Jane Eyre” novel was written by one of three Brontë sisters, to be correct - the eldest one. But not everyone knows that the number of sisters was more. There were five of them not including one brother. Brontë father was a rural pastor during all his life. Their mother, Maria Branwell Brontë, passed away after giving birth to the sixth child. Charlotte was five years than. The children were brought up by their aunt, the father’s sister. No one knows anything about this woman, but it’s a common knowledge that in four years after their mother’s death eight-year old Charlotte together with two elder sisters Maria and Elizabeth and the youngest Emily were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School. As far as I understand it was a charitable institution.

Due to the conditions in this school, which were very miserable according to the grave consequences, Charlotte becomes the eldest child in the family, as Maria and Elizabeth die of typhus and tuberculosis, getting the infection in the period of studying. Now the following table is hanging on the wall of the building, where the school was located:


One shouldn’t be very penetrating for guessing the source of Jane Eyre’s first part story origin. Brontë aunt became a prototype for Mrs. Reed; Clergy Daughters’ School - Lowood, the elder sister Mary – Helen Burns (the first friend of young Jane Eyre).

The first 94 pages of the novel (I mean the edition I’ve got) became the result of this sorrowful life-experience. Unfortunately all the troubles of a little girl are true.

Still, the point is that just as Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë endured much at this charitable school. Up to this point the destiny of the author and the main heroine are very much alike, but then different wonders and amazing adventures, finally leading Jane Eyre to happiness, rush into her life; meanwhile Charlotte Brontë’s life goes on in trials and tribulations. Here are brief milestones of her further fortune: at the age of 15 Emily spent two years at Miss Wooler’s Boarding School. There she continued working as a teacher for some time, and then was a governess in a family for three years. When she was 26, together with Emily she left for Brussels in order to study French and German. They say this trip became a turning point for her. All the impressions got by this country-girl in such a great European city, changed her mentality completely. As a consequence, her literal approach (it’s known that all the Brontë children went in for storey-writing from the very childhood) also changed, - not her imagination (as it used to be earlier), but real life-experience became the basis of her novels. Besides, the owner of the pensionnat they lived in turned out to be rather cool; so Charlotte fell in love with him and made him the prototype for Mr. Rochester. In spite of the fact that he was married, had five children and took only a liking to Charlotte, she honored him by immortalizing in the novel. Though, this entire story unfortunately brought her nothing but broken heart.

In 1846 (Charlotte was already 30) the sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Ann, the youngest) published joint collection of poetry under the assumed male names, thus beginning their literary career. I should notice that this book became a failure (only two copies were sold), but nevertheless the start was made. Charlotte was the luckiest, as her Jane Eyre , published in 1847, immediately became a success.
And now I’ll have to tell you about the saddest. As I’ve already written, Bronte sister had a brother, Branwell, who was their beloved and most talented of them. When he grew up, just as his sisters, he had to work as a teacher for earning his living. But evidently the things went all wrong as he got into a pretty mess, took to drinking and opium and died in 1848. In a month after his death Emily died of tuberculosis and in four months the same illness slayed Ann.

This poem was written by Charlotte after Ann’s death. Surely it’s sad. It’s possible to imagine how it all happened.

Charlotte stayed alone with her father, who was broken-down with all the troubles. She continued her literary career, publishing two more novels, - "Shirley" (1848) and “Vilette” (1853). One more novel, “The Professor”, was published in 1857 after her death.

At the age of 39 she got married to a rural pastor, her father’s successor, Mr. Arthur Nicholls. But her happiness didn’t last long. No sooner than in half a year, being pregnant for 5 months, she died of galloping consumption. It happened on March, 3, in 1855.

If you got interested with my muddled narration, you may continue reading yourself:

The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Brontes Chronology
Jane Eire
Great number of other info about the sisters, their novels and all that jazz

My aim was to describe not the troubles of Charlotte Bronte, but to cover the topic of Jane Eire’s personage appearance and the fact that everything in the novel is great and positive. I hope that tomorrow I’ll write about the novel and serial (which, let me remind you, became the whys and wherefores of my writing).

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

Жми!

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