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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Wuthering Heights & Jane Eyre is a compelling anthology that juxtaposes the haunting and gothic landscapes of Emily Brontë's and the intricate societal commentary of Charlotte Brontë's works. Through their distinct yet intertwined narratives, the collection explores themes of passion, social class, and identity, seamlessly blending Romantic and Victorian literary traditions. These novels transcend their era, offering enduring examinations of love and morality through deeply complex characters and richly atmospheric settings. The Brontë sisters, hailing from the isolated moors of Yorkshire, left an indelible mark on literature, weaving elements of their own secluded upbringing into layered explorations of human emotion and social constraints. Emily and Charlotte Brontë, through their masterful storytelling, contribute significantly to the gothic and romantic movements of the 19th century. Their portrayal of strong heroines and tempestuous love stories reflects a profound engagement with the cultural and moral dilemmas of their time, enriching literature with voices that straddle the ethereal and the real. This anthology offers readers an unparalleled opportunity to engage with two of English literature's most profound novels side by side. Readers can appreciate the diversity of perspective and narrative style, which together create a dialogue on the human experience's darker yet fundamentally hopeful dimensions. This volume is invaluable for those seeking to understand and appreciate the depth of Victorian literary achievement through the work of two of its most influential figures. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - An Introduction draws the threads together, discussing why these diverse authors and texts belong in one collection. - Historical Context explores the cultural and intellectual currents that shaped these works, offering insight into the shared (or contrasting) eras that influenced each writer. - A combined Synopsis (Selection) briefly outlines the key plots or arguments of the included pieces, helping readers grasp the anthology's overall scope without giving away essential twists. - A collective Analysis highlights common themes, stylistic variations, and significant crossovers in tone and technique, tying together writers from different backgrounds. - Reflection questions encourage readers to compare the different voices and perspectives within the collection, fostering a richer understanding of the overarching conversation.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Wuthering Hights & Jane Eyre
Table of Contents
Introduction
Curatorial Vision
This collection brings together Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë to illuminate how two landmark novels interrogate selfhood, desire, and moral responsibility within turbulent social worlds. Side by side, they reveal complementary approaches to passion and principle, solitude and belonging, and the costs of freedom. The curatorial aim is to foreground the shared Gothic inflections and searching psychological depth that have shaped modern conceptions of the novel’s power. Encountering them together emphasizes continuities and divergences that may recede when each work is approached alone, encouraging a sustained comparative reading attentive to resonance rather than hierarchy.
Both novels probe the thresholds between inner conviction and outward constraint, blending intense emotion with ethical inquiry. Their protagonists navigate inhospitable environments, yet cultivate an interior steadiness that tests the claims of authority, inheritance, and desire. The through-line we emphasize is the transformation of suffering into vision: each narrative converts storm and silence into moral clarity, even when that clarity remains contested. By drawing attention to recurring images of houses, rooms, and borders, this volume highlights how space becomes an instrument of conscience, privacy, and resistance, inviting readers to consider the architecture of power alongside the architecture of feeling.
Our aim is not to dissolve their singular voices but to stage a dialogue that respects difference while tracing kinship of form and vision. Jane Eyre offers a relentless exploration of moral autonomy and imaginative resolve; Wuthering Heights confronts the unruly energies of attachment and loss. Together they map the range of the novel’s capacity to render inward life and social friction without recourse to simple consolation. The collection foregrounds motif, cadence, and rhetorical intensity, encouraging a reading attentive to voice, atmosphere, and ethical stakes rather than to plot mechanics or historical minutiae.
Read alongside one another, the novels invite an arc from discipline to disruption, from negotiated belonging to elemental defiance. Separate encounters can obscure this arc, since each work, taken alone, builds its own interpretive horizon. Here the arrangement draws out their shared fascination with threshold states—between childhood and adulthood, solitude and partnership, law and longing—while also preserving the bracing singularity of each voice. The purpose is to cultivate a comparative habit of reading that privileges texture over taxonomy, encouraging sustained attention to how conviction, desire, and memory shape the possibilities and perils of living with others.
Thematic & Aesthetic Interplay
Placed in conversation, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights amplify a network of motifs: storms that test inner constancy, windows and doorways that frame choice, and isolated houses that become crucibles of feeling. Both question the legitimacy of power—familial, romantic, and social—by scrutinizing how affection and dominance intertwine. They share a Gothic atmosphere that intensifies psychological inquiry, yet they treat fear as an instrument of ethical awakening rather than mere spectacle. The result is a reciprocal illumination in which each narrative sharpens the other’s portrayal of conscience, endurance, and the sometimes perilous routes by which love seeks form.
Contrast also generates productive dialogue. One novel cultivates a steadfast, interior voice devoted to moral testing and earned commitment; the other stages intensity as volatility, making landscape and household feel charged by ungoverned will. This difference in tonal temperature invites reflection on how fiction negotiates freedom: through patient self-fashioning, or through collision with forces that refuse domestication. Yet both approaches converge on the question of what a person owes to self and to others, and how desire may either enlarge or diminish that obligation. Divergence, in this sense, becomes a method of mutual clarification rather than estrangement.
Recurring images reinforce this interplay. Fire and frost, open moor and stifling room, vow and transgression operate as a shared symbolic grammar through which each novel examines loyalty, rage, and forgiveness. The domestic sphere is at once sanctuary and battleground; kinship is a resource and a constraint. By tracing these echoes, the collection emphasizes how setting functions as a moral instrument and how weather dramatizes states of mind. The effect is not redundancy but call-and-response, where the second reading of each book is refracted through the first, widening the field of meanings available to both.
Dialogue also extends to form. Jane Eyre deploys rigorous introspection to test the grounds of consent and dignity, while Wuthering Heights layers perspectives to explore the opacity of motive and memory. Reading them together showcases two distinct pathways for representing consciousness: a disciplined vector of growth and an echoing chamber of conflicting testimony. These divergent architectures lead to compatible insights about the limits of judgment, the uses of secrecy, and the risks of narrative desire. Each novel thus becomes, for the other, a lens that clarifies how storytelling can sustain both moral precision and visionary tumult.
Enduring Impact & Critical Reception
This pairing matters because it stages a concentrated inquiry into dignity, love, and the imagination’s claim upon reality. The novels continue to energize debate about autonomy, social belonging, and the ethics of attachment. They offer durable frameworks for thinking about resilience in the face of constraint, and about the difference between justice and vindication. Their language and situations have traveled widely through culture, shaping conversations in classrooms, studios, and public discourse. The collection proposes that their ongoing vitality arises not from agreement but from friction, where powerful ideals confront equally powerful appetites, refusing neat reconciliation.
Critical reception has long recognized the distinctive force of each novel and the productive tension between them. Readers have returned to these works to test changing ideas about gender, class, race, and the social contract, finding in them arguments that resist closure. Their characters’ trials and triumphs are interpreted variously as celebrations of individual conscience, cautions about obsession, meditations on forgiveness, or indictments of cruelty. This diversity of emphasis signals an elastic artistry that accommodates divergent frameworks without collapsing into vagueness, a quality that sustains fresh interpretation and keeps the novels central to evolving conversations about ethical life.
Their cultural afterlives are equally expansive. The stories have been reimagined across media, rendered into visual and performative languages that broadcast their conflicts and longings to new audiences. Citations and reworkings continually test the malleability of the source texts, confirming that the novels supply archetypal situations rather than period curiosities. Scholarly debate often revisits their representations of authority, consent, kinship, and wilderness, considering how narrative voice mediates power. Such ongoing attention underscores a simple claim: these books persist because they combine intensity with ambiguity, leaving interpretive space where readers can confront their own commitments and contradictions.
Gathered here, the novels invite renewed attention to how literature can host disagreement without collapsing into cynicism. Their meditations on love’s demands and limits encourage continued reflection on the alignment between feeling and justice. The coupling sharpens contemporary questions about privacy, consent, and the responsibilities of care, offering a laboratory for testing convictions against experience. By approaching both as partners in an ongoing conversation about freedom and accountability, this collection offers a framework for sustained, discerning engagement. The hope is not resolution, but a more capacious imagination of what it means to live with others responsibly.
Historical Context
Socio-Political Landscape
Published in 1847, the novels emerged from a Britain governed by constitutional monarchy and Parliament, strained by industrial capitalism and reformist agitation. The northern counties combined bleak moorland with manufacturing towns, exposing frictions between landholding families, tenant farmers, and new money. Chartist petitions, repeal campaigns, and disputes over poor relief animated public life. Railways stitched regions together while displacing older rhythms of labor and travel. Against this backdrop, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë imagined households where inheritance, employment, and respectability determined futures. Their settings echo not isolated romance but a social landscape remade by enclosure, wage work, and the scrutiny of neighbors.
Imperial expansion framed expectations of education, faith, and fortune. Colonial appointments, remittances, and missionary rhetoric threaded through respectable conversation, shaping ideas of duty and mobility. At the same time, debates over national character intensified as famine, emigration, and rural unrest haunted policy. Continental uprisings would soon dramatize fears of revolution, but even before 1848, newspapers carried daily arguments about sovereignty, class rights, and public order. The novels’ emphasis on moral testing and self-command conversed with such anxieties, parsing how authority is claimed within households that mirror broader hierarchies, where patronage, patronym, and property law anchor or unsettle identity across generations.
Gender constraints were structural. Women’s legal identity was curtailed by coverture, and paid work for genteel women was largely confined to teaching or dependency. The figure of the governess condensed contradictions: educated yet subordinate, intimate yet dispensable, essential yet underpaid. Reviewers policed decorum, and circulating libraries enforced implicit censorship by steering subscribers toward morally acceptable titles. Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë published as Currer Bell and Ellis Bell, seeking impartial notice in a marketplace that distrusted women’s passionate or defiant voices. That choice reflects both entrepreneurial calculation and defensive camouflage within a culture where female ambition attracted suspicion and surveillance.
Class hierarchies remained rigid but porous. Old landed families guarded status through property and lineage, yet industrial fortunes and professional incomes created unsettling competitors. Education promised advancement while entrenching codes of speech, taste, and religious belonging. Anglican establishment and dissenting congregations contested moral authority in parishes and schools, influencing charitable oversight and domestic discipline. Law protected property more vigorously than sentiment, and reputation often determined access to credit, employment, and advantageous unions. The novels’ conflicts over guardianship, work, and recognition channel these pressures, staging contests of manners and mastery that feel local but index national struggles over legitimacy and rank.
Reform reshaped everyday life unevenly. New Poor Law practices centralized relief, provoking resentment in villages and factory districts. Child labor regulation, nascent inspection regimes, and philanthropic campaigns altered households, mealtimes, and Sundays. Literacy expanded through mechanic institutes and subscription reading rooms, but gatekeepers debated which texts were improving. Domestic service, coaching, and small tenancy all adjusted to railways and market volatility, making stability feel precarious. Within this churn, ideals of self-discipline and moral sentiment became public tests as well as private guides. The novels register such tests, tracking how characters articulate duty, desert, and dignity amid shifting institutional arrangements.
Britain’s global posture entailed garrisons abroad and taxation at home, with news of distant conflicts filtering into parlors alongside commodity prices and weather reports. Military reforms and anxieties about defense colored rhetoric about courage, loyalty, and sacrifice that also governed household authority. At elections, limited franchises balanced continuity and change; reform had widened participation without displacing deference. Print culture, backed by advertising and reviewers, formed a patronage network that could crown or crush reputations. Against this system, the Brontës’ stark voices sounded both timely and unruly, testing how much candor and intensity the Victorian public sphere would tolerate from novelists.
Intellectual & Aesthetic Currents
The novels sit at a hinge between Romantic intensity and Victorian discipline. They draw on Gothic architecture, storm-lashed settings, and haunted inwardness, yet insist on ethical accountability and social consequence. Nature appears not as a pastoral refuge but as an animate pressure that clarifies or confounds selfhood. The moor, the schoolroom, and the parlor become experimental chambers for feeling and judgment. This fusion complicates neat labels, resisting pure didacticism while refusing mere sensation. The result is an austerely lyrical mode that tests how solitude, memory, and aspiration can be rendered without losing sight of contracts, wages, and the rooms people inhabit.
Philosophically, the era balanced Enlightenment faith in reason with romantic claims for imagination, conscience, and the sublime. Evangelical rigor supplied a vocabulary of sin, grace, and perseverance, while common-sense moral psychology encouraged readers to infer motives from conduct. The novels marshal first-person confession and multivocal testimony to interrogate perception, reliability, and the ethics of narration. They join a broader turn toward interiority without abandoning social analysis. In both, the will is tested against circumstance, and character emerges as a negotiated settlement between impulse and principle, suggesting that the self is historical, improvisational, and answerable to communal standards of worth.
Technological change expanded literary horizons. Steam presses lowered costs; railways accelerated author-publisher correspondence and widened distribution; the electric telegraph condensed news cycles, sharpening the appetite for timely commentary. Subscription libraries and serialized formats cultivated habits of anticipation and communal discussion. Domestic pianos, parlor recitations, and provincial theatricals provided supplementary circuits where scenes and sentiments could be rehearsed aloud, embedding novels in everyday performance. These infrastructures encouraged bolder experiments with voice and structure, knowing that diverse audiences would hear and debate them. The Brontës exploited that possibility, crafting narratives whose intensity survives the mediation of markets, schedules, and sociable reading conventions.
Across the arts, medievalist revival and landscape devotion shaped taste. Painters prized weather, heather, and ruins; architects revived pointed arches; amateurs filled albums with watercolors of lonely prospects and ancestral houses. Popular theatre favored melodrama and moral trial, while sacred and domestic music disciplined feeling through hymn and étude. Such currents aligned with the novels’ reliance on setting as character and on ordeal as revelation. Yet their prose is stark rather than ornamental, refusing to dissolve conflict into picturesque effect. Proportion, restraint, and sudden vehemence alternate in a cadence that echoes choral call-and-response, inviting readers to weigh claims rather than swoon.
Literary taxonomy was contested. Critics invoked Gothicism to police excess and Realism to demand ordinariness, but the novels unsettle both camps. They claim the Bildungsroman’s promise of development while insisting on accountability for harm; they borrow confession’s candor yet resist moral exhibitionism; they flirt with sensational devices while treating them as symptoms rather than ends. Review pages became arenas where rival programs—improving instruction versus passionate authenticity—argued over what fiction should do. Without issuing manifestos, the books stage their own debates through framing devices, retellings, and withheld knowledge, turning aesthetic quarrels into plot energy and interpretive puzzles for readers to resolve.
Scientific and quasi-scientific ideas disturbed complacencies. Geology enlarged time, meteorology mapped tempests, and physiological theories recast nerves and temperament as measurable. Phrenology and domestic hygiene promised to decode character from surfaces, even as skepticism grew. The novels acknowledge these pressures by treating bodies, rooms, and climates as moral instruments: restlessness has weather, conscience finds architecture, and illness bears social causes. Yet they preserve mystery in what cannot be systematized—attachment, contrition, resilience. This balance let readers explore modern curiosity without surrendering to determinism, keeping open a margin where ethical choice, however constrained, remains legible against the impress of environment.
Legacy & Reassessment Across Time
Early reception was unsettled. Reviewers admired vigor yet balked at perceived roughness, questioning whether such intensity suited polite readerships. Circulating libraries and schoolrooms often demanded abridgment or moral gloss, producing bowdlerized impressions that softened sting and solitude. The unveiling of the authors’ identities reframed debate about propriety and authority, exposing gendered assumptions in praise and blame. Over subsequent editions, careful typography and prefaces domesticated shock without neutralizing it. Even so, the novels secured audiences who recognized in their severity a truth about constraint and desire that outlasted seasonal fashions, ensuring reprint after reprint within a culture hungry for exemplary lives.
Twentieth-century upheavals altered meaning. Wars, displacement, and austerity made the books’ meditations on endurance, grief, and integrity newly legible. Scholars stabilized texts through collations and notes, enabling classrooms to discuss variants, diction, and historical reference without conjecture. Public-domain status widened availability, spurring translations and inexpensive reprints that carried these stories into libraries and private shelves across continents. Modernist fascination with consciousness and structure met its Victorian ancestor with respect, not rivalry, while later critics traced how narrative framing manages testimony and power. The result was canonization tempered by an awareness that hardness of vision is not cruelty but moral candor.
Gender-focused criticism transformed understanding of both works. Campaigns for women’s education and employment supplied retrospective context for ambition depicted without apology. Scholars traced how legal reforms regarding marriage, custody, and property illuminate the novels’ insistent concern with consent, contract, and vocation. Classroom conversations recognized the governess as a professional identity, not a mere romantic placeholder, and read passionate speech as political rather than merely personal. Such reassessment did not flatten complexity; it sharpened attention to discipline, self-respect, and the costs of transgression—allowing readers to see courage not as spectacle but as patient negotiation within structures designed to frustrate autonomy.
Postcolonial and race-aware readings reframed the surrounding world the books assumed. Imperial circuits of money, education, and belief became visible as historical conditions, not neutral backdrops. Critics traced how metropolitan order depended on distant extraction and classification, complicating claims to virtue at home. Translation history further diversified reception, as global audiences supplied analogies from other terrains and empires. Environmental scholarship joined this reorientation, treating the moor and the house as agents with their own temporalities, weathering human projects. Such approaches do not dismiss the novels; they multiply their stakes, asking how private resolve converses with planetary and geopolitical entanglement.
Adaptation sustained vitality. Stage versions emphasized confrontation; films and serial dramas exploited atmosphere; radio distilled confession; illustrators fixed faces that readers endlessly redraw. Museums, reading societies, and digital archives preserved manuscripts, marginalia, and early printings, anchoring interpretation in material traces. Scholarly editions established reliable texts and timelines without foreclosing debate, and copyright expiration encouraged creative retellings that test boundaries while honoring severity of tone. Today, classrooms and book clubs revisit these works as moral laboratories, where language, weather, and work measure what a person can refuse or accept—a continuing conversation about freedom within inheritances none can fully choose.
Synopsis (Selection)
Jane Eyre
An orphaned governess charts a path toward independence as she confronts hardship, moral dilemmas, and a complex attachment to her enigmatic employer at Thornfield Hall. Blending bildungsroman and Gothic romance, it explores identity, conscience, and social constraints.
Wuthering Heights
Set on the Yorkshire moors, the novel traces the intense bond between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw and its repercussions across two intertwined families. Through layered narration, it examines obsession, class, and the corrosive reach of vengeance.
Author Biography
Introduction
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) and Emily Brontë (1818-1848) were English novelists and poets known for their profound and pioneering contributions to literature. Growing up in the remote Yorkshire moors, they believed their writing could express the complexities of human emotion and social critique. Charlotte's most famous work, 'Jane Eyre,' highlighted issues of gender and class, while Emily's 'Wuthering Heights' presented a darker exploration of love and revenge. Their literary significance has only grown over the years as their works continue to resonate with themes of resilience, individuality, and the quest for identity.
Early Life
Charlotte and Emily Brontë were born to a clergyman, Patrick Brontë, and his wife, Maria Branwell Brontë, in Yorkshire, England. Following the death of their mother when Charlotte was five, the sisters lived a sheltered life with their three siblings: Branwell, Anne, and Maria. The Brontë siblings frequently engaged in imaginative play, creating intricate fictional worlds that nurtured their literary talents. The family's struggles with poverty and personal loss often permeated their narratives, reflecting their early experiences of grief and creativity forged in isolation and intellectual ambition.
The death of their siblings added a profound dimension to the sisters’ early lives. Maria and Elizabeth died from tuberculosis, leading Charlotte and Emily to grapple with mortality from an early age. Their brother, Branwell, struggled with addiction later in life, which deeply affected their family dynamics. This complex relationship within the family influenced their writing; themes of loss, isolation, and the darker aspects of human nature famously appeared in both Charlotte's and Emily's novels. The sisters' strong bond fostered creative collaboration, allowing them to inspire one another throughout their formative years.
Education and Literary Influences
Charlotte and Emily received limited formal education, primarily at home, supplemented by a brief period at the Clergy Daughters' School in Cowan Bridge. The harsh conditions of this institution left an indelible mark on Charlotte, influencing her depiction of the oppressive schooling system in 'Jane Eyre.' Despite these challenges, they ventured into literature together, immersing themselves in classic authors such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, and the Brontës' beloved poets, including William Wordsworth. This eclectic literary diet underpinned their evolving writing styles and thematic concerns.
The sisters found solace in the writings of romantic and gothic authors, particularly the works of Byron, which influenced their characterization and settings. Emily's affinity for nature and Charlotte's exploration of social class dynamics reflected the philosophical ideas of existentialism and moral responsibility prevalent in the works of authors like George Eliot. As they honed their unique voices, both Charlotte and Emily developed a desire to confront societal norms through their characters and narratives, delving into complex emotional landscapes that were extraordinary for their time.
Adulthood and Key Life Events
In their adulthood, Charlotte and Emily remained close to each other, continuing their literary pursuits and experiencing personal challenges as well. In 1846, feeling the need to publish their work and secure financial independence, the sisters, along with Anne, published a collection of poems under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. While the publication did not see commercial success, it marked their entrance into the literary world, allowing them to emerge as distinct voices in 19th-century literature.
Charlotte's tumultuous relationship with her publishing endeavors resulted in the success of 'Jane Eyre' in 1847, which drew widespread acclaim. The novel's vivid exploration of morality, independence, and passion captivated readers, but Charlotte faced challenges concerning her identity as an author. Concurrently, Emily completed 'Wuthering Heights,' published the same year, a novel that would become a cornerstone of Gothic literature, yet initially received mixed reception due to its unconventional narrative style and depictions of fierce passions. The sisters dealt with criticism while fostering their artistic identities in an era dominated by male writers.
Personal tragedy struck the Brontë family in the following years, with the deaths of Branwell, Emily, and Anne due to tuberculosis. The profound loss deepened Charlotte's sense of isolation and accelerated her determination to secure a legacy for herself and her sisters. While Emily's death in 1848 devastated Charlotte, it also galvanized her to honor their collective literary aspirations. The intimate familial bond in their lives would continue to inform Charlotte's writing in her later works, infusing them with raw emotion and depth.
In 1854, Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, a relationship laden with complexity and emotional tension. Their marriage brought Charlotte both joy and a new chapter in her life, yet she often grappled with feelings of guilt over her sisters' deaths. This emotional turbulence became a recurring motif in her later work. The societal expectations of being a wife and the lingering shadow of loss significantly impacted her creativity, as she sought to reconcile her emerging domestic life with her literary ambitions.
Concurrently, Charlotte's engagement with the literary community grew as she interacted with influential contemporaries such as George Henry Lewes and Elizabeth Gaskell. Through correspondence and discussions, Charlotte expanded her understanding of literature and introduced the profound themes that characterized her later works. Yet, the conservative Victorian social structure often constrained her personal and professional identity, added tensions to her relationships, and occasionally prompted stark reflections on societal constraints within her novels.
In 1855, Charlotte's health began to decline, leading her to seek rest and refuge at home. Despite her deteriorating condition, she continued to write, producing 'Shirley' (1849), which highlighted social issues, and 'Villette' (1853), which explored themes of love and alienation. Both works demonstrate her maturation as a writer and her growing engagement with feminist ideas. The enduring echoes of loss and struggle resonate throughout her narratives as she navigated her grief, ultimately striving to articulate the complexities of human experience.
The publication of 'The Professor,' Charlotte's posthumous work, provides insight into her literary journey, reflecting themes of longing, ambition, and resilience. It highlights her grappling with loss while remaining steadfast in her artistic vision. Important literary friendships helped shape Charlotte as an author, enriching her narrative styles. Notably, her collaboration with Henry James significantly influenced her development as a modern novelist, allowing readers to discern elements of realism in her later works that differ from the romantic confines of her earlier narratives.
Ultimately, the culmination of Charlotte's literary journey intertwined with her personal struggles, as her writings became increasingly reflective of her inner world. Her perspectives on poverty, social injustice, and the role of women in society were inspired by both her familial experiences and her broader awareness of societal expectations. These convictions would persistently echo throughout her body of work, driving her to challenge the status quo and continuously advocate for the rights of women through her characters and narratives.
Literary Career
Charlotte Brontë's literary career is best epitomized by her groundbreaking novel 'Jane Eyre,' published in 1847. This coming-of-age story features a strong-willed heroine who resists societal constraints, an exploration of class and gender that resonated with readers. Its emotional depth, along with its strong feminist undertones, earned Charlotte widespread acclaim and enduring popularity, fundamentally altering the trajectory of English literature. Charlotte's distinctive writing style, characterized by its rich imagery and strong character development, solidified her place as a novelist of note.
Emily Brontë's singular novel, 'Wuthering Heights,' published in the same year, distinguished her from her contemporaries and showcased her unique literary voice. This tale of passion, revenge, and supernatural elements took a pioneering approach to narrative structure, employing multiple perspectives in exploring complex human relationships. Although initially met with criticism for its unconventional themes, 'Wuthering Heights' gradually transcended its initial reception, finding its rightful place among classics of English literature. Emily's poetic prowess also garnered attention, further elevating her literary stature.
Charlotte's subsequent novels, 'Shirley' (1849) and 'Villette' (1853), continued to explore themes of independence and female identity, reflecting her keen insight into the struggles faced by women in Victorian society. 'Shirley' portrays the impact of the industrial revolution on women's lives, while 'Villette' delves into loneliness and the quest for selfhood. These works, marked by psychological depth and emotional complexity, are often regarded as her mature masterpieces that allowed Charlotte to push the boundaries of narrative form.
Despite early successes, both sisters faced the challenges of commercial literary markets of the time, particularly in an era when female authors were often marginalized. The recognition that followed their respective initial successes was significant yet mixed, with Charlotte finding more favor among critics than Emily during their lifetimes. The sisters’ choice to publish under male pseudonyms further highlights their struggles against prevailing gender norms, ultimately allowing them room to navigate societal expectations while asserting their artistic talents.
Charlotte's complex relationship with the literary community was characterized by connections with influential figures, such as George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell. These relationships allowed Charlotte to exchange ideas, leading to revisions in her narrative style and theme explorations. Gaskell brilliantly portrayed women's vitality in her works, interestingly resonating with Charlotte's own struggles with gender expectations in Victorian society. Correspondences with other authors reflected not only her dedication to her craft but also the importance of camaraderie in a challenging literary landscape.
The enduring impact of both Charlotte and Emily's works was evidenced by the growing critical appreciation shown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their profound insights into human desires and familial bonds continued to resonate globally, paving the way for feminist literature and inspiring generations of writers. Furthermore, their novels were celebrated for their raw emotional honesty, enabling readers to confront the complexities of love, class, and morality, which remain relevant in the contemporary literary landscape.
Both Brontë sisters navigated a complicated legacy within the literary world, with Charlotte’s tragic tale and Emily’s singular genius capturing the attention and imagination of future generations. Their stories have been adapted into plays, films, and continued scholarly analysis, ensuring their place within the canon of English literature. This sustained interest is a testament to the enduring power of their words, as both have become iconic figures who challenged social conventions and inspired literary innovation.
Greatest Achievements
The Brontë sisters' most notable literary successes include the enduring masterpieces 'Jane Eyre' and 'Wuthering Heights,' which laid the groundwork for modern female protagonists in literature. They revolutionized narrative techniques with their innovative storytelling and complex emotional landscapes, paving the way for subsequent generations of authors. Their works continue to receive critical acclaim, academic analysis, and popular adaptations, establishing Charlotte and Emily Brontë as pillars of literary achievement whose influence extends far beyond their lifetime.
Beliefs and Advocacy
Charlotte and Emily Brontë were deeply concerned with the societal norms of their time, particularly surrounding issues of gender inequality, class disparity, and the struggles of the individual. They advocated for women's rights through the creation of strong female characters who defied societal constraints. Their narratives often highlighted the struggles women faced in their quest for autonomy, ultimately leading to a broader discussion on the role of women in Victorian society and urging readers to challenge pre-existing notions of femininity and social class.
Charlotte's engagement in social issues was particularly pronounced as she often sought to reflect her own life experiences in her writing. Through 'Jane Eyre,' she presented a powerful critique of the restrictive roles imposed on women in the Victorian era. By showcasing her character's determination to find love and self-worth on her terms, Charlotte's work urged readers to reconsider the societal expectations placed upon women, making gender equality a central theme in her body of work.
Similarly, Emily Brontë's portrayal of complex characters in 'Wuthering Heights' demonstrated the innate struggle against societal constraints. The character of Catherine Earnshaw serves as a compelling examination of the tension between personal desire and societal pressures. The intensity of emotions depicted in Emily's work challenges traditional notions of passion and morality, thereby advocating for a more nuanced understanding of human complexity and the validity of individual experience, regardless of societal expectations.
Both sisters were passionate advocates for the power of literature and its capacity to enact social change, believing in its potential to provoke thought and inspire action. Their writings not only encapsulate the personal struggles of individuals but also resonate with larger societal issues. The courage they displayed in tackling complex themes continues to inspire contemporary writers and advocates, as their commitment to authenticity and social justice underscores the cyclic nature of literature as a means of addressing the issues of their time.
Final Years
In their final years, both sisters faced significant challenges. Charlotte Brontë's health deteriorated after her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, and she suffered from the grief of losing her siblings. Despite her declining health, she remained committed to her writing, producing notable works until her last days. Emily Brontë's life was relatively short-lived, as she passed away in 1848 from tuberculosis, leaving her debut novel as her singular literary legacy. The intensity of their experiences often found expression in their writing, reflecting their struggles with love, loss, and identity.
Charlotte Brontë died on March 31, 1855, shortly after becoming pregnant, a loss mourned by her contemporaries and literary circles. Her death, while overshadowed by the earlier loss of her sisters, drew attention to the enduring impact of her work. Readers and critics expressed deep appreciation for her contributions, evident in the growing body of posthumous analysis and adaptations of her novels. The profound melancholy surrounding her passing amplified her status as a literary figure, marking her as a poignant symbol in the journey of women's literature.
Legacy
The legacy of Charlotte and Emily Brontë endures as a significant force in literary history, influencing countless authors and establishing a foundation for feminist literature. Their groundbreaking explorations of identity, social constraints, and emotional truth resonate deeply in contemporary discourse, prompting renewed interest in their works. Today, they are regarded as quintessential figures in English literature, their lives serving as both a testament to the struggles faced by women and an affirmation of the enduring power of the written word, preserving their voices for generations to come.
Wuthering Hights & Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
TO
W. M. THACKERAY, Esq.,
This Work
is respectfully inscribed
by
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
A preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.
My thanks are due in three quarters.
To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions.
To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant.
To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended Author.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry — that parent of crime — an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is — I repeat it — a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth — to let whitewashed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose — to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it — to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.
Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.
There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital — a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time — they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Rimoth-Gilead.
Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day — as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him — if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger — I have dedicated this second edition of “Jane Eyre.”
CURRER BELL.
December21st, 1847.
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION
I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of “Jane Eyre” affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently, denied where it is justly due.
This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been made, and to prevent future errors.
CURRER BELL.
April13th, 1848.
CHAPTER I
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner — something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were — she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.
“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”
A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
I returned to my book — Bewick’s History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of “the solitary rocks and promontories” by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape —
“Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.”
Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with “the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space, — that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.” Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.
The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.
The fiend pinning down the thief’s pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.
So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed’s lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened.
“Boh! Madam Mope!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.
“Where the dickens is she!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain — bad animal!”
“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once —
“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.”
And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.
“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence.
“Say, ‘What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself in an armchair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother’s heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John’s sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.
John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.
Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.
“That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,” said he, “and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!”
Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.
“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked.
“I was reading.”
“Show the book.”
I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.”
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer — you are like a slave-driver — you are like the Roman emperors!”
I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.
“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won’t I tell mama? but first — ”
He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don’t very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me “Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words —
“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!”
“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!”
Then Mrs. Reed subjoined —
“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.
CHAPTER II
I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.
“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she’s like a mad cat.”
“For shame! for shame!” cried the lady’s-maid. “What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your young master.”
“Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?”
“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.”
They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.
“If you don’t sit still, you must be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.”
Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.
“Don’t take them off,” I cried; “I will not stir.”
In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.
“Mind you don’t,” said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity.
“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.
“But it was always in her,” was the reply. “I’ve told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She’s an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover.”
Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said — “You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse.”
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in —
“And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them.”
“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, in no harsh voice, “you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure.”
“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn’t have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don’t repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away.”
They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.
The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The housemaid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room — the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie’s evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.
All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother “old girl,” too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still “her own darling.” I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.
“Unjust! — unjust!” said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression — as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question — why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of — I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.
