Summer is such a wonderful time for teachers to read books we otherwise don’t have time for  during the school year. This is a new biography of Charlotte Bronte which Haverford Township Free Library had on its new book shelves. Written by Claire Harmon (2016), Charlotte Bronte: A Fiery Heart narrates the life of this remarkable author who was inspired and challenged to write by her siblings (Branwell, Emily and Anne) and her own ambition to be an author.

I had always known intellectually about the tragedy and grief of Bronte’s life: the early death of her mother in 1821, her oldest two sisters Maria and Elizabeth dying in 1825 of tuberculosis, her alcoholic brother Branwell dying and then both sisters Emily and Anne dying of tuberculosis. But I had not appreciated that Branwell, Emily and Anne had all died within the span of few months. Branwell died in September 24, 1848, Emily died on December 19, 1848 and then Anne died on May 28, 1849. Charlotte was with Anne in Scarborough when she died. They had gone there in the hopes that the sea air might ease her tuberculosis. These three siblings were Charlotte’s direct competitors, instigators, critics, and audience for her novels.

After their deaths, she returned to writing but only after a time. She eventually did get married to Arthur Nicholls in 1854 but then she dies on March 31, 1851. Harmon convincingly argues that she died as a consequence of hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). This condition of violent and unceasing nausea and vomiting is caused by the hormones of pregnancy. Harmon makes the contemporary connection to Kate Middleton who was hospitalized for the condition.

I am a little annoyed with myself that thus far this blog is only about the family and romantic facts of Bronte’s life. But on the other hand I already knew about her books since I have read, reread, studied, and taught them for many years. What this biography highlighted for me was the reality of her life, the events and relationships which shaped her.

I also have not mentioned the married teacher Belgian Constantin Heger with whom Charlotte fell obsessively in love while a student at Roe House from 1842 until December 1843. I have known about this relationship as well, but had not fully appreciated how much Edward Rochester was modeled upon Heger or how much Jane’s address and tone to Rochester might have been modeled on her interactions with Heger. Also apparently, the character Monsieur Paul from Villette was modeled on Heger and many of the readers of this novel were obsessed by him: “One correspondent who had previously determined to marry only the counterpart of Mr. Knightley (from Jane Austen’s Emma) “now…vowed that she would either find the duplicate of Professor Emanuel or remain forever single!!!'” (Harmon, 349).

Harmon does quote one of Heger’s comments on an essay that Charlotte wrote and the advice is still good for writers today:

What importance should be given to details, in developing a subject?–

Remorselessly sacrifice everything that does not contribute to clarity, verisimilitude, and effect.

Accentuate everything that sets the main idea in relief, so that the impression be colourful, picturesque. It’s sufficient that the rest be in its proper place, but in half-tone. That is what gives to style, as to painting, unity, perspective and effect. (Harmon, 161)

I also had not appreciated the unyielding nature of Emily Bronte who would not bend for anyone and apparently was a spiritual tyrant as Branwell was an alcoholic tyrant. A fellow teacher had told the story about how Emily beat up her own dog Keeper until he was half blind for climbing on her bed. But in Harmon’s book I read that when she was bitten by a possibly rabid dog, she went into her house, grabbed a hot poker and burned the bite, cautherizing the wound and killing any rabies. One of their friends remarked about Emily: “Imagine Emily turning over prints or ‘taking wine’ with any stupid fob & preserving her temper & politeness” (Harmon, 160). She also refused to die — like her own characters. She would not admit any weakness and “went as far as take up her sewing, though the servants saw that her eyes had already begun to glaze over” (Harmon, 287).

The other thing I had not appreciated is how much Charlotte Bronte’s stories of Angria prepared the way for her novels and in particular her creation of and obsession with a male character named Arthur Augustus Adrian Wellesley, Marques of Douro, King of Angria and Duke of Zamorna. In Harmon’s biography, this character is always referred to as Zamorna and gets his own entry in the biography’s index. Zamorna was Bronte’s idealized sexual fantasy: a dark, enigmatic, intelligent, decisive, mysterious, powerful, handsome man who has multiple affairs. Bronte describes one of her female characters reflections about him:

“The young lady’s feelings were not exactly painful, they were strange, new & startling — she was getting to the bottom of an unsounded sea & lighting on rocks she had not guessed at” (Harmon, 130).

I supposed if I were teaching I would have to make the girls explore those metaphors of sea and rocks and submersion.