Charlotte Bront (/brnti/ or /brnte/; 21 April 1816 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest

t of the
threeBront sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels have become classics of English literature. She published her

best known novel, Jane Eyre, under the pen name Currer Bell.

Early life and education[

Charlotte was born in Thornton, west of Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1816, the third of the six children
of Maria (ne Branwell) and Patrick Bront (formerly surnamed Brunty or Prunty), an Irish Anglican clergyman. In 1820
her family moved a few miles to the village of Haworth, where her father had been appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and
All Angels Church. Maria died of cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters, Maria, Elizabeth,
Charlotte, Emily and Anne plus a son, Branwell, to be taken care of by her sister, Elizabeth Branwell.
In August 1824 Patrick Bront sent Charlotte, Emily, Maria and Elizabeth to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan
Bridge inLancashire. Charlotte maintained that 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 both died of tuberculosis in June
1825. After the deaths of her older sisters her father removed Charlotte and Emily from the school. [1] Charlotte used the school as
the basis for Lowood School in Jane Eyre.
At home in Haworth Parsonage Charlotte acted as "the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters".[2] She and her
surviving siblings Branwell, Emily and Anne created their own fictional worlds, and began chronicling the lives and
struggles of the inhabitants of their imaginary kingdoms. Charlotte and Branwell wrote Byronic stories about their jointly
imagined country, Angria, and Emily and Anne wrote articles and poems about Gondal. The sagas they created were elaborate
and convoluted, and exist in incomplete manuscripts. They provided them with an obsessive interest during childhood and early
adolescence, which prepared them for literary vocations in adulthood. [3]
Between 1831 and 1832 Charlotte continued her education at Roe Head in Mirfield, where she met her lifelong friends and
correspondentsEllen Nussey and Mary Taylor.[1] 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 (18351927), an unruly child who on one occasion threw a
Bible at Charlotte, an incident that may have been the inspiration for that part of the opening chapter of Jane Eyre in which John
Reed throws a book at the young Jane.[4]
In 1842 Charlotte and Emily travelled to Brussels to enrol at the boarding school run by Constantin Heger (180996) and his
wife Claire Zo Parent Heger (180487). In return for board and tuition Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. Their

time at the school was cut short when their aunt Elizabeth Branwell, who had joined the family in Haworth to look after the
children after their mother's death, died of internal obstruction in October 1842. Charlotte returned alone to Brussels in January
1843 to take up a teaching post at the school. Her second stay was not happy: she was homesick and deeply attached to
Constantin Heger. She returned to Haworth in January 1844 and used the time spent in Brussels as the inspiration for some of the
events in The Professor and Villette.
First publication[edit]
In May 1846 Charlotte, Emily and Anne self-financed the publication of a joint collection of poems under their assumed names
Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The pseudonyms veiled the sisters' gender while preserving their initials; thus Charlotte was Currer
Bell. "Bell" was the middle name of Haworth's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls whom Charlotte later married, whilst "Currer" was
the surname of, Frances Mary Richardson Currer who had funded their school (and maybe their father).[5] Of the decision to
use noms de plume, Charlotte wrote:
Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being
dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare
ourselves women, because without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called
"feminine" we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics
sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise. [6]
Although only two copies of the collection of poems were sold, the sisters continued writing for publication and began their first
novels, continuing to use their noms de plume when sending manuscripts to potential publishers.Charlotte's first manuscript, The
Professor, did not secure a publisher, although she was heartened by an encouraging response from Smith, Elder & Co. of
Cornhill, who expressed an interest in any longer works Currer Bell might wish to send. [7] Charlotte responded by finishing and
sending a second manuscript in August 1847. Six weeks later Jane Eyre: An Autobiography was published. It tells the story of a
plain governess, Jane, who, after difficulties in her early life, falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester. They marry, but only
after Rochester's insane first wife, of whom Jane initially has no knowledge, dies in a dramatic house fire. The book's style was
innovative, combining naturalism with gothic melodrama, and broke new ground in being written from an intensely evoked firstperson female perspective.[8] Charlotte believed art was most convincing when based on personal experience; in Jane Eyre she
transformed the experience into a novel with universal appeal.[9]
Jane Eyre had immediate commercial success and initially received favourable reviews. G. H. Lewes wrote that it was "an
utterance from the depths of a struggling, suffering, much-enduring spirit," and declared that it consisted of "suspiria de
profundis!" (sighs from the depths).[9]Speculation about the identity and gender of the mysterious Currer Bell heightened with the
publication of Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily) and Agnes Grey by Acton Bell (Anne).[10] Accompanying the speculation
was a change in the critical reaction to Charlotte's work, as accusations were made that the writing was "coarse",[11] a judgement
more readily made once it was suspected that Currer Bell was a woman. [12] However, sales of Jane Eyre continued to be strong
and may even have increased as a result of the novel developing a reputation as an "improper" book. [13]
Shirley and bereavements[edit]
In 1848 Charlotte began work on the manuscript of her second novel, Shirley. It was only partially completed when the Bront
family suffered the deaths of three of its members within eight months. In September 1848 Branwell died of chronic
bronchitis and marasmus, exacerbated by heavy drinking, although Charlotte believed that his death was due to tuberculosis.
Branwell was also a suspected "opium eater"; a laudanum addict. Emily became seriously ill shortly after Branwell's funeral and
died of pulmonary tuberculosis in December 1848. Anne died of the same disease in May 1849. Charlotte was unable to write at
this time.

After Anne's death Charlotte resumed writing as a way of dealing with her grief, [14] and Shirley, which deals with themes of
industrial unrest and the role of women in society, was published in October 1849. Unlike Jane Eyre, which is written in the first
person, Shirley is written in the third person and lacks the emotional immediacy of her first novel, [15] and reviewers found it less
shocking. Charlotte, as her late sister's heir, suppressed the republication of Anne's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, an
action which had a deleterious effect on Anne's popularity as a novelist and has remained controversial amongst the sisters'
biographers ever since.[16]
In society[edit]
In view of the success of her novels, particularly Jane Eyre, Charlotte was persuaded by her publisher to make occasional visits
to London, where she revealed her true identity and began to move in more exalted social circles, becoming friends with Harriet
Martineau and Elizabeth Gaskell, and acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray and G.H. Lewes. She never left Haworth
for more than a few weeks at a time, as she did not want to leave her ageing father. Thackerays daughter, writer Anne Isabella
Thackeray Ritchie, recalled a visit to her father by Charlotte:

Portrait by George Richmond

... two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, with fair straight hair and steady eyes. She may be a little
over thirty; she is dressed in a little barge dress with a pattern of faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in
seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This then is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all
London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books the wonderful books. ... The moment is
so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm;
for, genius though she may be, Miss Bront can barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat
grave and stern, specially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. ... Everyone waited for the brilliant conversation which never
began at all. Miss Bront retired to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind governess ... the
conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by the gloom
and the silence to be able to cope with it at all ... after Miss Bront had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front
door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him ... long
afterwards ... Mrs Procter asked me if I knew what had happened. ... It was one of the dullest evenings [Mrs Procter] had ever
spent in her life ... the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and
how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club. [17]
Charlotte's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell, while not particularly close, was significant in that Gaskell wrote the first
biography of Charlotte after her death in 1855.
Villette[edit]
Charlotte's third novel, the last published in her lifetime, was Villette, which appeared in 1853. Its main themes include isolation,
how such a condition can be borne,[18] and the internal conflict brought about by social repression of individual desire.[19] Its main
character, Lucy Snowe, travels abroad to teach in a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette, where she encounters a
culture and religion different from her own, and falls in love with a man (Paul Emanuel) whom she cannot marry. Her
experiences result in a breakdown but eventually she achieves independence and fulfilment through running her own
school. Villette marked Charlotte's return to writing from a first-person perspective (that of Lucy Snowe); the technique she had
used in Jane Eyre. Another similarity to Jane Eyre lies in the use of aspects of her own life as inspiration for fictional
events;[19] in particular her reworking of the time she spent at the pensionnat in Brussels. Villette was acknowledged by critics of

the day as a potent and sophisticated piece of writing although it was criticised for "coarseness" and for not being suitably
"feminine" in its portrayal of Lucy's desires.[20]
Marriage[edit]
Before the publication of Villette Charlotte received a proposal of marriage from Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, who
had long been in love with her. She initially turned down his proposal and her father objected to the union at least partly because
of Nicholls's poor financial status.[21] Elizabeth Gaskell, who believed that marriage provided "clear and defined duties" that were
beneficial for a woman,[21] encouraged Charlotte to consider the positive aspects of such a union and tried to use her contacts to
engineer an improvement in Nicholls's finances.[21] Charlotte meanwhile was increasingly attracted to Nicholls and by January
1854 she had accepted his proposal. They gained the approval of her father by April and married in June. [22] They took their
honeymoon in Kilkee, County Clare, Ireland.
Death[edit]
Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by
"sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness."[23] She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, aged 38.
Her death certificate gives the cause of death as phthisis, but many biographers[who?] suggest that she died from dehydration and
malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. There is also evidence that she
died fromtyphus, which she may have caught from Tabitha Ackroyd, the Bront household's oldest servant, who died shortly
before her.[citation needed] Charlotte was interred in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.
The Professor, the first novel Charlotte had written, was published posthumously in 1857. The fragment of a new novel she had
been writing in her last years has been twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being Emma Brown: A Novel
from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Bront by Clare Boylan in 2003. Most of her writings about the imaginary country
Angria have also been published since her death.
Elizabeth Gaskell's biography The Life of Charlotte Bront was published in 1857. It was an important step for a leading female
novelist to write a biography of another,[24] and Gaskell's approach was unusual in that, rather than analysing her subject's
achievements, she concentrated on private details of Charlotte's life, emphasising those aspects that countered the accusations of
"coarseness" that had been levelled at her writing.[24] The biography is frank in places, but omits details of Charlotte's love for
Heger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and a likely source of distress to Charlotte's
father, widower and friends.[25] Mrs Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Bront, claiming
that he did not allow his children to eat meat. This is refuted by one of Emily Bront's diary papers, in which she describes
preparing meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage.[26] It has been argued that Gaskell's approach transferred the focus of
attention away from the 'difficult' novels, not just Charlotte's, but all the sisters', and began a process of sanctification of their
private lives.[27]

Jane Eyre
Chapters 110
.

Analyzing Literature
1.How are Jane and Helen Burns different in their attitude toward injustice? How
would you explain this difference?
2.Mr. Brocklehurst, the head of Lowood school, believes that hardship builds strong
character. What is your opinion of this point of view?

3.Literature and Writing

Character Analysis
In this portion of the novel, Bront lets the reader into Janes mind as Jane analyzes
her relations with others and describes her own personality. The author also describes
Jane from the outside, through the words of other characters, such as Helen Burns,
Mrs. Reed, and Mr.Brocklehurst.
Review the first ten chapters, paying special attention to Chapters 2, 4, 7, and 8, to
answer these questions: What challenges or trials does Jane face at Gateshead and at
Lowood? What do we learn about Jane from her responses to these trials? Do you see
any signs of personal growth or change in Jane in these settings? What
generalizations might you make about Jane from age ten to age eighteen? Write your
character analysis on a separate sheet of paper.

Extending Your Response

Discuss the events at Lowood Institution. In your group, review Chapters 57 for
situations and details that convey the oppressive atmosphere at the school. Using this
information, prepare a brief skit including actual or paraphrased dialogue from the
novel. Assemble simple items to serve as props or parts of costumes that will help
suggest the grim setting and atmosphere. Take turns presenting your scenes to the
class.
Social Studies Connection
In Charlotte Bronts day, many orphans were sent to institutions like Lowood.
Conduct research to find out what options exist today for children without parents.
Then, prepare two or three case studies, or profiles, using made-up names, that
present typical situations.