Megan Myers

Dr. Ruie Pritchard

Integrating Writing and Technology
June 7, 2014
Expository Essay on The Bronte Sisters

When thinking of the Bronte sisters, one must consider their writings separately and their
life spent together. Paradoxically, these mysterious and bright women were as different as
strangers, yet shared many similar experiences that influenced their famous writing. They
were raised by their Irish father, Patrick OBrunty, who later changed his name to Bronte.
Patrick Bronte wanted a better life for himself than his poor Irish tenant farmer parents, so
he moved to England and abandoned his very-Irish name for a new exotic name that
exuberated prestige.
Bronte married Maria Branwell, and they had six children in seven years. Their last child,
Anne, was born in 1820, and by the next year, Maria was dead. In the same year of 1821,
Patrick was assigned to Haworth parish in Yorkshire, one of the most desolate parishes in
England (Engel 83). The Bronte house was situated far from the nearest village,
surrounded on nearly every side by the grave yard of dead parishioners, in a gloomy
moorlike something straight out of a Poe story. This dreary setting isolated the family, but
ultimately helped to develop the imaginations of the brilliant Bronte sisters.

The two eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to a boarding school that was run
under dangerous conditions (something Charlotte later incorporates into her famous novel
Jane Eyre), and were sent home early, only to die within 5 weeks of each other. The other
four siblings quickly became close, and formed two rival writing groups. Charlotte and
Branwell (the only Bronte male) created a fantasy world called Angria, while Charlotte and
Emily formed a rival world named Gondal. These fictionary lands were the settings for
hundreds of stories the children would write down. They would even publish their own
novels by cutting up the stiff cardboard that sugar came in to bind over their paper as a
book cover.

When the children were older, they began exploring options for employment. Branwell was
thought to be the familys most promising child. He could paint and fence and draw, sing
and play musical instruments. Anything Branwell did he seemed to do perfectly (Engel 89).
Unfortunately, after a brief stint as a tutor to a wealthy family (which he ruined by sleeping
with the wife, Mrs. Robinson), Branwell only became successful in drinking and doing drugs,
which was what ultimately killed him at a young age.

As for the renowned sisters, their only option of employment as poor, bring young women
was to become a governess. Charlotte made for a horrible governessshe was
unattractive (a feature which was important for success as a governess) and stubborn,
having little patience for the terrible children she tutored. Emily was considered very
beautiful, but she was not mentally fitted for caring for children. She was introverted and
often withdrawnwhen Emily was a teenager, she would spend five or six hours in her
bedroom simply standing at the window and gazing outwhile she gazed, the white window
blind was closed; she wasnt looking at the view of the moors, she was spending hours
looking at simply this white window blind (Engel 88). Anne, pretty but not too beautiful,
smart but not brilliant, made for a wonderful governess (though did not make for a wonderful
author).

Charlotte is by far the most interesting Bronte sister. Where Anne and Emily died early from
consumption (tuberculosis), Charlotte lived on to be 38. She was arguably the most brilliant
sister as wellit was her idea to write novels for a living instead of being a governess; she
was the first sister to write a book (The Professor, which would not get published but
opened the doors for her to send her later writings), she was the most prolific writer (she
wrote four novels where the other sisters only wrote one), and she was the sister who came
up with the pseudonyms the family adopted as their literary identity. When she was
publishing Jane Eyre, her publisher told her to use a mans name. He told her that there
had never been a respectable novel by a woman (Engel 92). So she chose the moniker
Currer Bell, because of its androgynous nature. And so Emily adopted Ellis Bell, and Anne
was Acton Bell. Posthumously, the names have been righted to their original authors.
Charlotte was also the only sister to marry. She married Arthur Bell Nichols (an interesting
connection to her pseudonym), but died less than 2 years after being married. She died of
consumption as she was seven months pregnant with her only child.

Though the Bronte sisters had short, isolated, tragic, consumption-ending lives, their
writings are that much more astounding. That they could produce such literary works under
such dreary and prison-like conditions is admirable. Their novels, especially Jane Eyre and
Emilys only novel, Wuthering Heights, are not only staples in the English cannon, but by
many considered the best-written novels in the English language. They are truly amazing
works by mysterious and amazing women.