Class and Gender in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley

Abstract

Whenever I teach Charlotte Bronte, both in degree and adult education classes, I find that almost every female and virtually no male student has read at least one of her novels in their adolescence. Her most well-known work is Jane Eyre which is ironic, since this was a novel carefully kept away from well-bred Victorian adolescent girls as too passionate and titilating, but in this century given the seal of thorough approval by parents and teachers alike. Whereas nineteenth century critics and readers regarded Charlotte Bronte as a great writer, far more accomplished than her sister Emily, this century has seen a critical reversal. While Wuthering Heights is now regarded as one of our best novels, Charlotte's work is criticized for its numerous stylistic flaws, and demeaned as less original in concept and execution than Emily's novel. For a modem reading public, 'The Bronte Sisters', lumped together in biographies, TV serials and on teatowels from Haworth, epitomize both Victorian female suffering and passive endurance, and that 'genius' which magically surmounted the trials of their tragic lives.