Charlotte Bronte
- Dettagli
- Categoria: Letteratura inglese
- Pubblicato Giovedì, 30 Giugno 2011 18:34
- Scritto da François Burgay
Life
She began working as a teacher and governess. Charlotte with her two sisters went in Belgium to study French. Here they published, under three different pseudonymous, some poetry and their first book. Charlotte one is called “Jane Eyre”. Very soon her brother and her two sister died. She married a reverend and, while she was pregnant, she contracted pneumonia and she died in 1835.
Works
Shirley
Jane Eyre: a novel of formation.
The main character is Jane Eyre, an orphan. The story tells about Jane from the childhood to maturity. The story ends with a marriage.
Summary:
Jane was sent to a boarding school. She wanted to become a teacher and she went working to Mr Rochester house as a teacher and governess.
Mr Rochester felt in love with her and the decided to be married. Jane, before the wedding day, discovered that Rochester is already married with a mad woman: Berta Mason who is locked in an attic. She decided to leave Rochester and Thornfield. She became a teacher in a small village. One day she knew that Thornfield has burnt. Berta had set fire. Berta died while Rochester is now blind and alone. Jane decided to go back to Rochester and they were finally married.
Features
We can find a lot of autobiographical elements in Jane Eyre.
Description of events mediated by Jane’s feelings (this went against the Puritanical idea that a good woman shouldn’t explore the realm of physical passions).
The novel is a bildus roman (novel of formation: from the childhood to maturity) and it has two gothic features: the very big house with doors and stairs, and Berta Mason, a wild and strange woman, surrounded by mystery.
Interpretations
Jane and Berta: double figure. Berta can represent the repressed and violent side of Jane, but also the mad “women” who existed in the Victorian age. Mad women couldn’t tell their stories and they lived closed in their cells. Jane and Berta are then complementary: the good side of a woman (who wants to be married) and the cruel side (marriage means prison).
