Writer of the literary chef-d’oeuvre " Jane Eyre , " sister to Emily , Anne and Branwell , and mistress of the Yorkshire moors , Charlotte Brontë ( and the balance of her household ) are sources of strange fascination to the general public , as well as to many author and film maker . Much of citizenry ’s perceptions of Charlotte as a diffident invalid were cumulate from an 1857 life spell by her friend Elizabeth Gaskell , and now historian realize the portraiture was incomplete and incorrect . Here are five thing that may alter your printing of Charlotte Brontë .
1. She Hated Kids
Brontë follow from an impoverished clergyman ’s family and was impel to earn a life with only a few selection uncommitted to her . unluckily , two of them — teacher and governess — involved working with children , whom she abhor . While a teacher at Roe Head School , shewrote in her journal , " I had been toiling for closely an hour . I sat subside from annoyance and weariness into a form of lethargy . The opinion issue forth over me : Am I to spend all the good part of my liveliness in this wretched thralldom , forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness , the apathy and the hyperbolic and most fatuous stupidity of these fat head lubber and on compulsion arrogate an air of kindness , forbearance and assiduity ? …. Just then a stupid come up with a deterrent example . I call up I should have regurgitate . "
2. She Lost Many Teeth
This was not an uncommon condition in those days , but Brontë apparently made an belief . Gaskell described Brontë to a friendthis way in a letter : " She is developing , thin and more than half a heading brusk than I … [ with ] a reddish face , big mouth and many tooth gone ; wholly bare . " Two year after " Jane Eyre " was write , Brontë write to her ally Ellen Nussey in 1849 , " I find I really must go to Mr. Atkinson the dentist [ in Leeds ] and enquire him if he can do anything for my dentition . "
3. She Had a Beef With Jane Austen
You might have remember the two straightlaced madam novelist would have had something in common . But Brontë was not strike by the prompting that she could learn from Jane Austen . Though esteemed literary critic George Henry Lewes wrote a lucky review of " Jane Eyre , " he thought it had moments of melodrama and praise Austen for her more naturalistic style . After see the poster , Brontë decided to take " Pride and Prejudice . "
Shewrote to Lewes ,
Perhaps the way Lewes seemed to pit the two novelist against each other contribute to Brontë ’s dislike . Not to mention that the two char approached the subject of love from very dissimilar points of view .
4. She Had a Passionate Marriage
Brontë receivedfour marriage proposals , the last two from Arthur Nicholls , her father ’s curate who had been in erotic love with her for years . Brontë did not love Nicholls and so turned him down the first time . Her founding father also violently opposed the marriage proposal . Brontë wrote to her champion Ellen Nussey , " Agitation and anger disproportional to the occasion ensue ; if I hadlovedMr . Nicholls , and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used [ by her father ] , it would have transported me past my patience ; as it was , my blood boiled with a sense of injustice . " Two years later , her Father-God cave in his permission and the two were married in 1854 . In a short time , she was name to her hubby as"my dear Arthur"in letters and noting that " every daylight makes my attachment to him stronger . " But their happiness was abbreviated .
5. Her Death Has Been a Source of Mystery
Just nine months after her wedlock , Charlotte Brontë give out at age 39 . Her death certificate listed the cause as " phthisis " or tuberculosis , which had kill her sisters Emily and Anne before . Her biographer Elizabeth Gaskell wrote that she had symptoms of"perpetual sickness and ever - fall back faintheartedness . " This has led to guess that she could have died fromtyphoid(which a servant had died from in the beginning ) or pneumonia ( she caught a cold after a manner of walking in the pelting ) . But the most interesting theory is that she was meaning at the meter and suffered fromhyperemesis gravidarum , or " runaway first light nausea " ( which is what the Duchess of Cambridge also experience when significant ) . Othersdispute this , noting that tuberculosis could fully excuse her symptoms and her doctor never observe she was meaning .
