What I learned from Dr. Tweet

 

What I learned from Dr. Tweet

 

Around this time of year, late fall or early winter, during the late 70s, we were studying Moby Dick in Dr. Tweet’s American Renaissance class.  The theme of “heart’s honeymoon” was prevalent.  Here were all these sailors, from all over the world, some barely “civilized” according to 19^th century American mores, all depending on each other certainly for survival, but also for companionship and fellowship.  Some couldn’t speak English, but that didn’t matter.  They were still tied together in a common endeavor, “brothers in Christ”, if you will.

 

I saw the same theme in Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, my favorite writer.  The thrill of it all, that despite our differences, we are human, and we need each other for love and for survival.

 

That’s a powerful message to remember at the end of this terrible year, where I fear we still are not out of the woods.  This past week, I learned of the deaths of two more friends, not Covid 19 related, but devastating all the same.  In the last six weeks, that’s, five people for me in the last six weeks alone.  I don’t know how many altogether this year, but my Aunt Connie’s death stands out above all.  Swift, terrible, sudden.  In the last 2.5 years, I’ve had three funerals for family, several deaths on the same day, lost three of my closest friends, people I depended on.  I lost my mother, too, and that seemed to start all of it.

 

While it’s true many of my friends were older, it is also true that I know people of extreme old age who are hale and healthy and who, yes, work.

 

It’s almost over, and many of us are still alive.  My cousin, disabled, but still young, endures in a nursing home, with her devoted brother visiting on the other side of plexi glass every two days. Parents of other good friends and family languish in their assisted and even independent living establishments, trapped indefinitely till this nightmare is over.

 

It bothers me we forget who we are as Americans; that no one, on either side of the aisle, reads The Constitution. It bothers me that something as trivial as politics can cause an intellectual and philosophical civil war.  

 

Forgive me for rambling, but for 13 years, I’ve watched my family suffer and die, often because of mistakes of incompetent hospitals and so called health care professionals.  Yes, I’ve spoken up, reported, watched, done my due diligence.  It didn’t help.  My comfort is what goes around comes around; what happened to my family will happen to them, or even better/worse, to someone they love.  I wish I could be there to laugh in their faces when that happens.

 

Despite the fact that my Mediterranean personality demands the vendetta, I try to live in memory to take comfort, especially during the holidays.  I honor my family with cemetery flowers, but I try paying it forward to people with small gifts and contributions, by remembering our charities and church, by saying prayers, like “Thank you, Lord, for this day”, each morning.

 

I try to move forward, and have forgiven much of the past.  I try to be kind to someone, even a stranger, to remember how fleeting life is, to try to enjoy what I can. Yet, I know that now, when I set our holiday table, I also prepare a place for the Angel of Death, who walks with me everywhere.

 

This holiday season, may your loved ones’ memories be eternal.  Take comfort in Him who died for our sins, and whom we celebrate this time of year.  As you take your ornaments out, treasure your memories, and remember that no one who is remembered really dies.

 

In the Autumn of our Years; Women of a Certain Age

 

Women of a Certain Age; Autumn

 

“You’re ageless, timeless, lace and fineness/ you’re beauty and elegance.”

                                    Rod Stewart, “You’re in my Heart”

I’ve always loved fall best out of all the seasons, but it isn’t lost on me that it’s full of contradictions.  One day it’s boiling hot, the next, frost covers everything.  Sometimes there are roses and violets everywhere, yet pumpkins are sparse and few.

 

As beautiful as the leaves are, it’s hard to remember that they are dying, that Persephone left for Hades in autumn, and that winter was close behind. 

 

So, too women in their autumn years are full of contradictions.  We didn’t create them, we just have them.  We are old enough to be grandparents, yet young enough to raise our grandchildren if we have to. 

 

We can no longer have our own children, but our husbands can procreate seemingly forever. 

 

As women, we still need our mothers and fathers, yet we end up in a parental role for them, or worse, we lose them.  At a certain age, a woman first experiences true loneliness; she watches her family die around her, even some of her friends, till no one is left.

 

We remember real rock and its legends, but many of them, if alive, are even older than we are, and they walk with canes if at all.  Sometimes their voices are strong, and when we hear them sing, we can close are eyes and be fourteen again.

 

The same things hurt us, but we aren’t supposed to let them bother us.  Often the same things please us, or we wouldn’t be married to the same person for so long.  We think as we always think, some of us get sharper, not duller.  We still work, and we still have the time to learn.  Yet, no matter how good we look, the world makes certain assumptions.  People speak to us more slowly and more loudly.  Bank clerks and nurses feel the need to “guide” us and remind us of bleak financial futures, Medicare, and brittle bones. 

 

We wonder if more time is gone then left; some of us used to escape on long trips and cruises, often on group tours.  There is safety in numbers.   Some of us find solace in our pets, in our cats and dogs especially.  We indulge in our hobbies, we join clubs. 

 

We’d like to work, but employers do the math; experience plus maturity equals to them old age, a definite no-no in a corporate world made of mutton, but dressed as lamb.

 

No one dresses as her grandmother did; it’s hard to tell how old we are.  Our hands betray us sometimes; crippled with arthritis, fingers twisted, no longer pointing straight.  Here and there, age spots erupt, but concealer covers them up. If we wear nice gloves or have elaborate manicures, we can explain away our old hands.

Barbara Pym celebrated us, and made our lives worthwhile to study, yet she's almost out of print, again.

So, here we are, deemed too young for some things, yet still to old to die.  What’s a girl to do?

Pym, Paternity, and Plastic Bags

  

This cold, blustery November day is the third anniversary of my Dad’s death.  I remember everything about him, including how neat and precise he was in organizing his things.  His desk was perfection, and we called it Miss Pym’s desk, since he was the one who edited my book and dissertation about Pym, The Subversion of Romance in the Novels of Barbara Pym.

 

He folded papers and plastic bags neatly, and even sorted and arranged our garbage.  He was way ahead of the recycling movement.  He could have been Marcia’s sibling from Pym’s Quartet in Autumn.  As Susan Pearce noted in The Collector’s Voice, Modern Voices,  Marcia was a discerning and organized collector.  She sorted milk bottles, leaving behind those that did not “fit”, and carefully folded and recycled her plastic bags. I have a friend who does this, too, particularly with the plastic bags that encase rolls of paper towels.  Both Marcia and my friend creased them perfectly, and kept them in special places.  I have tried to be that neat, and tried to crease carefully the bags I repurpose and recycle, but I just can’t do it.

 

Here’s to Dad, and to Pym and Marcia.  We could take a lesson from them about recycling, organization, and life.

 

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Review of Great Expectations

Great Expectations, 1861

This could be the title or hashtag addressed to all of our lives right now.  We have great expectations of when this self imposed quarantine will end, when our freedom will be restored, of the plans we will make.

For Pip, the protagonist of the novel, great expectations turn out not to be what he expects.  For that matter, most of the characters have great expectations that just don’t happen.

Dickens as a little of Hugo or Hugo has a taste of Dickens because a convict, Magwitch, decides to be kind to the sevenish or so Pip, after he’s terrorized him in the cemetery early in the novel.  After Pip brings him a file for his leg irons and some food, he uses his ill gotten gains, becomes wealthy as a sheep farmer, and becomes a secret benefactor to Pip.

Dickens’ favorite theme of secret pedigrees, of lost fortunes returned, and of characters being connected in ways no one could imagine, continues here.  As with the characters of Bleak House, many characters here wait for the wealth and better things they think are coming, and are not happy with what they have.   Their financial and social restlessness lead to unhappiness for them.

The theme of young men trying to gain an inheritance to make their way in the world is a favorite of 19^th century novels.  Men, and women, are driven by the need to better themselves by money and class are prevalent in Austen’s work.  Think Mr. Collins the greedy, oafish cleric, think Mr. Darcy’s disdain of such men.   Think the machinations of Mrs. Bennett and her attempts to marry off her daughters to gentry.

Mr. Rochester tells his own story of his marriage to Bertha Mason and of his early woes as a second son, doomed to make his own way.  Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights to earn wealth and social status to impress Cathy and become worthy of her love.  Cathy could be Estella’s long lost twin; both are hard hearted to a certain extent, marry for class and money, and learn the full extent of unhappiness through the wrong marriage.  At least Estella lives to repent.

Joe Gargery, Pip’s faithful brother in law, is simple, lacks education, but is self supporting.  He is a successful blacksmith who has provided for his family, and is happy with his lot, though he knows society holds no place for him.

In these picaresque stories of young men and women coming of age, fortunes are made and lost, and the adventures either make the main character gain incite or maturity or the adventures kill him or her.  Their ancestors are the bodice buster romances like the Angelique books (Sergeanne Golon) and the women of Rosemary Rogers’, Jennifer Wilde’s, and Kathleen Woodiwiss’s romances.

The women of Great Expectations have their own adventures.  Some, like Pip’s sister Mrs. Joe have let money and social climbing obsess them.  Mrs. Joe was an emotional cripple, insecure and abusive, before Orlick’s attack on her rendered her a helpless invalid. She is like Fagin; she sends out Pip and Joe to work, and if they come across a bit of money, she takes it and hoards it, perhaps planning a great expectation of her own.

Poor Miss Havisham is worthy of a book of her own.  She is trapped in time and lives in the past, forever the jilted bride.  Like Bertha Mason, her brother/half brother has betrayed her, except he has cost her a marriage and part of her fortune.  Where Bertha remains married but mad and imprisoned in Rochester’s attic, Miss Havisham remains rich in money but poor in spirit.  Her ghostly figure haunts the novel, and like a puppet master, she manipulates Pip, Estella her adopted daughter, and those around her.

She has taught Estella to hate men, and to be cold hearted.  Estella marries Drummle for his wealth and class, though she doesn’t love him.  She also hurts Pip a great deal, and allows Miss Havisham and others in the household to taunt Pip with tales of her courtship to Drummle, whom Pip loathes.

Biddy is kind, grateful, and helpful.  She improves herself and grows up from being a dirty, clever street urchin to a self possessed young woman, comfortable with herself, intelligent, an able to teach others. 

The psychological drama and suspense are riveting in this novel.  An early film version plays a prominent role in Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour.  In fact, the novel itself was an influence on Rice’s work.

By the end of Great Expectations, Pip has lost Biddy to Joe Gargery, and Miss Havisham, who has repented her behavior after she is burned in a terrible household accident.  Her demise reminds me a lot of Birdie’s in Rumer Godden’s The Doll’s House, except that Birdie has a much kinder personality.

Pip in the end, manages to gain a career, and as an accounting clerk, learns to account for his behavior and the cruel way he has treated Biddy and Joe.  He learns Estella is Magwitch’s daughter, and the daughter of  lawyer Jaggers’ servant, Molly.   For all her airs, her background is far more debased than his.  In an early ending, Pip remains a bachelor, unhappy, but serviceable.  He could have been an employee in Melville’s story, “Bartleby the Scrivener.”  In the second ending, he and Estella find each other, a happier ending, perhaps, for an audience that craved them.

Lawyer Jaggers  is fearsome, even to the criminals he deals with.  He sets up Estella’s adoption by Miss Havisham, and does fairly by Pip, but he is hard and emotionless for the most part.  Dickens worked as a law clerk, and his sympathy’s lie not with the profession.  As someone who has spent years using her law degree in firms, public sector law, and legal studies, my sympathies tend to lie with Dickens’.  Read an article called “The Emotional Labor of Paralegals “ to learn more.

Dickens has influenced a world of writers, and he lives in novelists as diverse as Thomas Hardy and Stephen King.  His plots have shades of Shakespeare, as do his characters, albeit sprinkled by a little Greek Tragedy.

In a world as crazy diverse and turbulent as ours, Dickens still holds a place, and he fulfills many of our own great expectations when it comes to reading for escape as well as pleasure.

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: House Arrest

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The Class that Began this Blog

These are my lesson plans that started this blog:

B.   

The Brontës, Rebel Angels of the House

Ellen M. Tsagaris, J.D., Ph.D.

Week 1

I. Course Introduction.

II.                Background women’s housework and women’s lives v. women’s writing lives:

• Plato
• Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
• John Donne and Barbara Pym on Excellent Women
• Pym on Housework in Less than Angels
• Bronte Sisters
• Coventry Patmore and his Angel of the House
• The Marquis and the Customs House Agent; Hawthorne and his unfortunate comment about “That Damned Mob of Scribbling Women” which included Harriet Beecher Stowe and E.D.E.N Southworth
• Southey and Charlotte; Ironic in light of Charlotte’s hero worship of Lord Byron [Byron’s “dry bob” comment in Don Juan].
• The Feminine Mystique
• Poets and chapbooks
• Juvenilia and Politics including The Duke of Wellington and Byron

III.             Brief Bios:

A. Charlotte/married name Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls , pseudonym Currer Bell/(1816-1855)Writer. Born April 21, 1816 in Yorkshire, England. Said to be the most dominant and ambitious of the Brontës, Charlotte was raised in a strict Anglican home by her clergyman father and a religious aunt after her mother and two eldest siblings died. She and her sister Emily attended the Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge, but were largely educated at home. Though she tried to earn a living as both a governess and a teacher, Charlotte missed her sisters and eventually returned home.

A writer all her life, Charlotte published her first novel, Jane Eyre, in 1847 under the manly pseudonym Currer Bell. Though controversial in its criticism of society’s treatment of impoverished women, the book was an immediate hit. She followed the success with Shirley in 1848 and Vilette in 1853.

The deaths of the Brontës are almost as notable as their literary legacy. Her brother, Branwell, and Emily died in 1848, and Anne died the following year. In 1854, Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, but died the following year during her pregnancy. The first novel she ever wrote, The Professor, was published posthumously in 1857. biography.com.

B.  Emily: Emily Brontë Biography: pseudonym Ellis Bell, in full Emily Jane Brontë-(1818–1848). (born July 30, 1818,  [both mine and my parents’ wedding anniversary!] Thornton, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Dec. 19, 1848, Haworth, Yorkshire) English novelist and poet who produced but one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a highly imaginative novel of passion and hate set on the Yorkshire moors. Emily was perhaps the greatest of the three Brontë sisters, but the record of her life is extremely meagre, for she was silent and reserved and left no correspondence of interest, and her single novel darkens rather than solves the mystery of her spiritual existence.

Her father, Patrick Brontë (1777–1861), an Irishman, held a number of curacies: Hartshead-cum-Clifton, Yorkshire, was the birthplace of his elder daughters, Maria and Elizabeth (who died young), and nearby Thornton that of Emily and her siblings Charlotte, Patrick Branwell, and Anne. In 1820 the father became rector of Haworth, remaining there for the rest of his life.

After the death of their mother in 1821, the children were left very much to themselves in the bleak moorland rectory. The children were educated, during their early life, at home, except for a single year that Charlotte and Emily spent at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. In 1835, when Charlotte secured a teaching position at Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head, Emily accompanied her as a pupil but suffered from homesickness and remained only three months. In 1838 Emily spent six exhausting months as a teacher in Miss Patchett's school at Law Hill, near Halifax, and then resigned.

To keep the family together at home, Charlotte planned to keep a school for girls at Haworth. In February 1842 she and Emily went to Brussels to learn foreign languages and school management at the Pension Héger. Although Emily pined for home and for the wild moorlands, it seems that in Brussels she was better appreciated than Charlotte. Her passionate nature was more easily understood than Charlotte's decorous temperament. In October, however, when her aunt died, Emily returned permanently to Haworth.

In 1845 Charlotte came across some poems by Emily, and this led to the discovery that all three sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—had written verse. A year later they published jointly a volume of verse, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, the initials of these pseudonyms being those of the sisters; it contained 21 of Emily's poems, and a consensus of later criticism has accepted the fact that Emily's verse alone reveals true poetic genius. The venture cost the sisters about £50 in all, and only two copies were sold.

By midsummer of 1847 Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey had been accepted for joint publication by J. Cautley Newby of London, but publication of the three volumes was delayed until the appearance of their sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre, which was immediately and hugely successful. Wuthering Heights, when published in December 1847, did not fare well; critics were hostile, calling it too savage, too animal-like, and clumsy in construction. Only later did it come to be considered one of the finest novels in the English language.

Soon after the publication of her novel, Emily's health began to fail rapidly. She had been ill for some time, but now her breathing became difficult, and she suffered great pain. She died of tuberculosis in December 1848.

Wuthering Heights: Emily Brontë's work on Wuthering Heights cannot be dated, and she may well have spent a long time on this intense, solidly imagined novel. It is distinguished from other novels of the period by its dramatic and poetic presentation, its abstention from all comment by the author, and its unusual structure. It recounts in the retrospective narrative of an onlooker, which in turn includes shorter narratives, the impact of the waif Heathcliff on the two families of Earnshaw and Linton in a remote Yorkshire district at the end of the 18th century. Embittered by abuse and by the marriage of Cathy Earnshaw—who shares his stormy nature and whom he loves—to the gentle and prosperous Edgar Linton, Heathcliff plans a revenge on both families, extending into the second generation. Cathy's death in childbirth fails to set him free from his love-hate relationship with her, and the obsessive haunting persists until his death; the marriage of the surviving heirs of Earnshaw and Linton restores peace.

Sharing her sisters' dry humor and Charlotte's violent imagination, Emily diverges from them in making no use of the events of her own life and showing no preoccupation with a spinster's state or a governess's position. Working, like them, within a confined scene and with a small group of characters, she constructs an action, based on profound and primitive energies of love and hate, which proceeds logically and economically, making no use of such coincidences as Charlotte relies on, requiring no rich romantic similes or rhetorical patterns, and confining the superb dialogue to what is immediately relevant to the subject. The somber power of the book and the elements of brutality in the characters affronted some 19th-century opinion. Its supposed masculine quality was adduced to support the claim, based on the memories of her brother Branwell's friends long after his death, that he was author or part author of it. While it is not possible to clear up all the minor puzzles, neither the external nor the internal evidence offered is substantial enough to weigh against Charlotte's plain statement that Emily was the author.

Biography.com. Joyce M. Tompkins, ed.

C. Anne- (1820-1849). Writer. Born January 17, 1820 in Yorkshire, England. Said to be the meeker and less talented Bronte sister, Anne was raised in a strict Anglican home by her clergyman father and a religious aunt after her mother and two eldest siblings died.

Largely educated at home, Anne worked as a governess for a several years before publishing her first novel, Agnes Grey, in 1847. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published in 1848 and sold well despite the fact that both books were considered more conservative than those of her sisters.

D.Branwell:   Branwell Bronte was born on June 26th 1817 at Thornton, Bradford in Yorkshire, fourth child of the six Bronte children. His mother died in 1821.

Branwell Bronte received no formal education, partly due to financial restrictions as his father was struggling to keep the family together after his wife's death. Branwell does not appear to have suffered as he was a very capable scholar with an enthusiastic desire to learn. He indulged in the Gondal stories and enjoyed writing with Charlotte.

In February 1836 at the age of 19 Branwell was proposed a freemason, and later became secretary of the Lodge. Meetings were held at the Black Bull until 1833 where they were held at Lodge St.

From June 1838 to May 1839 Branwell was working as a portrait painter in Bradford. In January 1840 he took up position as tutor for the Postlethwaite family at Broughton-In-Furness, in June 1840 he is dismissed. In April 1841 he was employed as Clerk in Charge of Luddenden Foot station near Hebden Bridge. While there he was known to frequent the Lord Nelson Tavern. In March 1842 he is dismissed from his post as there was found to be a deficit in the station accounts, attributed to Branwell Bronte's incompetence rather than theft. January 1843 Anne has managed to secure post of tutor for Branwell with the Robinson family at Thorp Green. In July 1845 he is dismissed from his post as tutor, It was discovered that he had an affair with Mrs Robinson.

For the next three years Branwell's state physically and mentally take a rapid decline due to his dependence on drink and opium and an increased state of self pity and worthlessness. He hears of the death of Mr. Robinson and attempts to try to rekindle his relationship with Mrs Robinson which fails.

On the 24th September 1848 Branwell died of chronic bronchitis / consumption, aged 31. On 28th September he was laid to rest in the family vault at Haworth church. The service was conducted by William Morgan.

www.haworth-village.org.

E.       Maria:

Birth:  1813 Yorkshire, England Death:  May 6, 1825 Yorkshire, England First of the six children born to the Rev. Patrick Bronte and his wife, the former Maria Branwell, 12-year-old Maria Bronte was the model for the character Helen Burns in "Jane Eyre", the classic novel written by her celebrated younger sister Charlotte. Born in Hartshead, Yorkshire in 1813, Maria was a toddler when her parents moved their growing family to the town of Thornton, where her more famous siblings--Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne--were born in quick succession. The young Brontës enjoyed a loving and creatively stimulating childhood, although in 1821, when Maria was seven years old, they suffered the loss of their mother to cancer. By this time the family had come to the parsonage at Haworth, on the Yorkshire moors, and Maria and three of her sisters had lived there happily until 1824, when they were sent away to Cowan Bridge School, a semi-charitable institution for the daughters of clergymen. Life at the school, which provided the model for "Lowood" in "Jane Eyre", proved miserable for the Bronte girls, and ultimately lethal for the two eldest, Maria and Elizabeth. Underfed and undernourished, exposed to extreme cold and disease, and continually subjected to fire-and-brimstone harangues by the staff and bullying by older girls, they became consumptive. Patrick Bronte withdrew all four by the year's end, but Maria's and Elizabeth's health had been irreparably damaged. They both died of tuberculosis--the disease which would eventually claim the lives of all six Bronte siblings--in the spring of 1825, Maria predeceasing Elizabeth by six weeks.   Burial: St Michael and All Angels Churchyard Haworth West Yorkshire, England Created by: Nikita Barlow Record added: Feb 19, 2007 Find A Grave Memorial# 17994336

F.       Elizabeth:

Birth:	Feb. 8, 1815 Yorkshire, England
Death:	Jun. 15, 1825 Yorkshire, England
The second of six children born to the Rev. Patrick Bronte and his wife, the former Maria Branwell, 10-year-old Elizabeth suffered a fate similar to that of the character Helen Burns in "Jane Eyre", the classic novel written by her celebrated sister Charlotte. Born in Hartshead, Yorkshire in 1815, Elizabeth and her elder sister Maria were babies when their parents moved to Thornton, which in short time became the birthplace of their more famous younger siblings: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. Raised in a loving, creatively stimulating atmosphere, the young Brontës' happy childhood had been saddened only by their mother's death from cancer in 1821, an event which occurred soon after the family had moved to the Haworth parsonage on the Yorkshire moors. Elizabeth was then six years old. Three years later, in 1824, she and her sisters Maria, Charlotte, and Emily were sent away to Cowan Bridge School for clergymen's daughters, a semi-charitable institution which inspired the miserable "Lowood" of "Jane Eyre". Girls at Cowan Bridge were underfed, malnourished, exposed to extreme cold and disease, and routinely subjected to bullying by older students and fire-and-brimstone harangues by the staff. Both Elizabeth and her elder sister Maria became consumptive, and the Rev. Bronte withdrew them, along with Emily and Charlotte, before the year was out. The elder girls' health had been irreparably damaged, however. Both Elizabeth and 12-year-old Maria died of tuberculosis--the disease which eventually claimed the lives of all six Bronte siblings--in the spring of 1825, Maria having predeceased Elizabeth by six weeks.
Burial: St Michael and All Angels Churchyard Haworth West Yorkshire, England
Created by: Nikita Barlow Record added: Feb 19, 2007 Find A Grave Memorial# 17994492

IV. Chronology:

April of 1814: Maria Bronte (daughter of Patrick and Maria) born

February 8, 1815: Elizabeth Bronte born

1815: Patrick becomes curate at Thornton

April 21, 1816: Charlotte Bronte born

June 26, 1817: Patrick Branwell Bronte born

July 30, 1818: Emily Jane Bronte born

January 17, 1820: Anne Bronte born

April 20, 1820: Patrick becomes Reverend of Haworth; family moves

September 15, 1821: Maria Bronte (wife of Patrick) dies of tuberculosis

1824: Maria and Elizabeth attend Cowan Bridge school. Charlotte and Emily follow later in the year.

May 6, 1825: Maria dies of tuberculosis

June 15, 1825: Elizabeth dies of tuberculosis

June of 1825: Charlotte and Emily return home

January of 1831: Charlotte attends Roe Head School

May 1832: Charlotte returns home

1835: Branwell goes to Royal Academy Schools in London, never gets to the schools, and returns home

July of 1835: Charlotte becomes a teacher at Roe Head School. Emily becomes a student there.

October of 1835: Emily returns home. Anne takes her place.

September of 1837: Emily becomes teacher at Law Hill School

December of 1837: Charlotte and Anne return home after Anne becomes ill. Charlotte resigns her position.

1838: Branwell goes to Bradford to become a portrait painter

March of 1838: Emily returns home from Law Hill School

April of 1839: Anne becomes governess to Ingham family

December of 1839: Anne is dismissed by the Ingham family

May of 1840: Anne becomes governess to Robinson family

August of 1840: Branwell works as assistant clerk in Sowerby Bridge Railway Station

February of 1842: Charlotte and Emily go to Brussels as pupils at the Pensionnat Héger

October 29, 1842: Aunt Branwell dies

November of 1842: Charlotte and Emily return home

January of 1843: Charlotte returns to Brussels as a teacher in the Pensionnat Héger. Branwell becomes tutor in Robinson family

January of 1844: Charlotte comes home

June 11, 1845: Anne resigns from position as governess to Robinson family

July of 1845: Branwell is dismissed from Robinson family for having an affair with Mrs. Robinson

May of 1846: Publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

October 19, 1847: Charlotte's Jane Eyre published

December of 1847: Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights published

June of 1848: Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall published

September 24, 1848: Branwell dies of tuberculosis

December 19, 1848: Emily dies of tuberculosis

May 28, 1849: Anne dies of tuberculosis

1849: Charlotte's Shirley is published

1853: Charlotte's Villette is published

June 29, 1854: Charlotte marries Arthur Bell Nicholls

March 31, 1855: Charlotte dies of tuberculosis and complications in pregnancy

1857: Charlotte's The Professor is published

June 7, 1861: Rev. Patrick Bronte dies

V.     Brief documentary, if time, from Biography.

VI. Books and artifacts brought:

A.    1848 edition of Jane Eyre.

B.     Illustrated Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights

C.     Ann Parker Doll

D.    Greek Wuthering Heights

E.     Films, tapes

F.      Biographies, criticism and other books

G.    Branwell shot glasses and j

Week II – will be expanded as we get to second week

A.     Jane Eyre

a.       Virginia Woolf on “The Continuing Appeal of Jane Eyre”

b.      Barbara Hardy “Dogmatic Form: Charlotte Bronte” this and above essay from

Norton Critical Edition

c.       Plot

d.      Main Characters

e.       Estate issues, Bertha, and Mr. Rochester as second son

f.       Unsuitable attachments and Barbara Pym; could this love story really have come true

g.      Bertha’s POV; is Jane really that nice?

h.      Fraser and biographical elements in the novel

 

B.     Wide Sargasso Sea- novel by Jean Rhys and Film

C.     Life of Charlotte Bronte and Mrs. Gaskell

Week III - will be expanded as we get to third week

A.     Wuthering Heights

a.       Plot

b.      History and photos of the real houses; Emily’s historical sources

c.       Major characters

d.      Themes

                          i.      Destructiveness of love

                        ii.      Estate and real estate issues and Heathcliff

                      iii.      Nature v. culture

                      iv.      Moors [Deanna Raybourn and Silent on the Moor]

                        v.      Ghosts

e.       Questions to ponder:

                          i.      Given the similarity of many of the names in the novel, what role do you think names play in Wuthering Heights?

                        ii.      Compare Edgar to Heathcliff; do you think Catherine can really love Edgar?

                      iii.      Describe the personality of Nellie Dean, aka, Ellen.

                      iv.      Contrast Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

                        v.      Would it change your view of Heathcliff if he turned out to be an elder son of Mr. Earnshaw?  Why or why not?

 

 

Week IV – will be expanded as we get to fourth week

A.     Tenant of Wildfell Hall

a.      Plot

b.      Characters

c.       The live of a governess

B.     Agnes Grey

a.      Plot

b.      Characters

c.       Bronte influence on the Romance Novel; my book on Pym

C.     Masterpiece Theater version

D.