WH Context Flashcards
Who was Branwell Bronte?
- Emily Bronte’s brother
- He was an opioid and alcohol addict
- Painted a portrait of his sisters but painted himself out of it
- Demonstrates the Bronte family dynamic and potentially influenced Emily’s writing (Hindley?)
What was Haworth like in the mid-19th century?
Benjamin Hershel Babbage revealed that Haworth was unclean, unsanitary and with alarmingly high mortality rates, on par with some districts of densely populated London.
Average life expectancy was 25 years and 40% of children would not live beyond the age of 6.
Where does the term ‘gothic’ originate?
- First used in reference to a medieval style of intricate architecture originating in 12th century France
- Romantic era - first time the term was applied to literature
- Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’ (1764) had the subtitle ‘A Gothic Story’ - intended as a joke as he thought the story was an antique and a relic
- However the word quickly became related to the love, death and misery of the tale
Features of a gothic text
- Mystery, fear, omens and curses
- Supernatural, paranormal activity
- Atmosphere and setting, often using pathetic fallacy
- Romance, a damsel in distress, the anti-hero and emotional distress
How did Bronte publish WH?
WH was strongly disliked in the Victorian era, and so Emily Bronte and her sister Anne paid the substantial sum of £50 to publish their works together. Emily Bronte had to publish her novels under the pseudonym ‘Ellis Bell’
What was the class system like in the Georgian and Victorian eras?
- Very difficult to move up into a different class
- Social sphere determined by your gender and social class
- In the middle class and aristocracy, often you would eat your breakfast with your spouse, and then spend your days and nights separately
Stereotypes surrounding the ‘separate spheres’ of men and women
- Men would go to work, hunting, spending the day at their clubs
- Women spent their days at home
- They had domestic chores and were considered physically weaker but morally superior
- Women were perceived to be more suited to the domestic sphere
- The two spheres didn’t mix
How does WH reject societal norms?
- WH rejects the idea of what a women should be in society, possibly because it was written by an unmarried woman unconcerned by domestic chores
- Catherine lives extravagantly, roaming the moors and doing what she wishes
- Isabella, however, does represent what a women would have been (at least at the beginning of the novel)
- There is a severe reversal of gender roles in the novel
Financial laws that effected women
- The right of succession went to the first born child, but the successor must be male, and so if the first born was a woman or none of the children were men, the women of the family could well become destitute if they turn them out
- If a man marries the first born daughter of the estate, the husband will then inherit the house - English Common Law
- Women could not will anything away, and so everything was the man’s. Also, through divorce, which was close to impossible, the woman would not be able to take anything as the law overwhelmingly favoured men
- Women who had never married were given more rights and control over money and property, and after some criticism, later when Bronte was writing WH, there were new laws passed which gave women more rights
What was women’s education like?
- Women would focus on becoming an “Angel in the House” - they learnt accomplishments at boarding schools or with a governess
- Cathy subverts this in chapter 24, when she teaches Hareton to read - unusual as women would not usually be seen to teach people
