An enthralling and riveting work. It is a biography which does justice not just to Charlotte but also to the sisters, Haworth in Keighley, Bradford, and the rest of the West Yorkshire countryside.
So much of the personal character; their behaviour, the world view of the Bronte sisters was shaped by the natural scene around them. The moors, the uninhabited hills, the frosty nights, the dark winters, the furious gales must have all had their effect on them.
It must have been something to live amidst those somber, unsolicited surroundings. Debilitating bad health and consumption was the scourge of the Bronte family. Their life of constant privation, suffering and struggle certainty shaped their imagination to produce such master pieces as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, Shirley, Villette, and The Tenant of Wildfel Hall.
Mrs. Gaskell has done extraordinary research to build a meticulous account of Charlotte’s life, mostly from her correspondence to her friends and her publisher. Yet this is not a mere account of her subject’s life. In her work, Charlotte is nearly a Greek protagonist whom fate has subjected to unimaginable loss: the death of her mother, four sisters, her brother and aunt. Her short sight and recurring ill health and her father’s blindness are two things which dominate her existential struggle. Charlotte’s life is one of extreme fragility and deprivation. Her literary career in the initial stages is a disappointment because of the rejections all around. In her effort to sustain herself and not be a burden to the family she is absent from home. The absence of cheer and joy and the general harshness of her condition would be enough to break any other person and turn them bitter. Yet amidst all this darkness, Charlotte trod on with simple faith in God the Almighty, never letting, frustration or vexation take hold of her, never abandoning the Christian virtues of humility, piety, friendship, love and kindness.
She lives for her sisters Emily and Anne, the trio of them, who shaped their literary careers around each others’ imagination, experience and personality. All of them were victims of ill health and the disillusionment that the fate of their brilliant brother Branwell who was once regarded as the family saviour, engendered in their already somber world.
As described in the blurb it is an extremely atmospheric and perceptive book, as it takes you across, into the rugged moors of West Yorkshire, the Bronte Parsonage, the lovely sitting room and the very clean surroundings, the expansive hills and the heathen surroundings, the Yorkshire spirit of courage and stoicism but also of rough candor and boldness. Mrs. Gaskell unravels for us the working of the creative genius of the three sisters, who took on the pseudonym of the Bell sisters.
If only fortune had been more favorable to them, what fascinating works of fiction might have flown from their pen? They were all taken early from this world. The book has a Gothic feel to it and the inhabitants of the parsonage especially Emily, certainly have a reclusive aloofness to them and Gaskell works very hard to bring out this facet of the sisters ‘personality. Even Charlotte is delineated clearly as Currer Bell the writer of Jane Eyre who has set the world on fire and raised all England on a speculative hunt to discover the author and Charlotte the person; a timid, shy, unassuming, modest lady.
Albeit implicitly, the book speaks a great deal about the prevailing social structure of the day. The nature of schools in those times which were established with the charity and clemency of some people with noble intentions became centers of psychological harassment and deprivation. The classic experience of Charlotte and her sisters at Cowan Bridge gets transformed into the epitome of moral and stentorian rigidity in a school called Lowood in Jane Eyre. The regard for daughters in a family was generally not so favorable when compared with that for the sons. The Brontes’ father does not send them to a formal school until a very late age. His eccentricity and irascibility prevent any healthy interaction between them and their father and he mostly keeps to his study. Also there are remarkable insights into the way people pass time. In those days when communication and transport were primarily undeveloped, the chief modes of passing time were reading or writing letters, reading books, walking, conversing with friends or visitors or pursuing one’s interests like painting, writing, sewing etc. But what a contrast to our present day?