Emily Jane Bronte :: essays research papers

Emily Jane BronteEmily Jane Bronte remains a mystery. Very little is known some her. thither islittle information, and much of what we have is contradictory. She is the authorof only one novel and a few bits of poetry. This gives people little to build on.The majority of what we know about her comes from her sister, Charlotte, who isanother well known author. From what is known, it would appear that Emily led anordinary life of a nineteenth century female. She attended boarding school andlearned municipal skills at home. In other ways her life was unusual and eveneccentric, contributing to the originality of her great novel.Emily Jane Bront was born on July 30, 1818 in Thornton, Yorkshire. Shewas the fifth child and fourth part daughter of Reverend Patrick Bront and MariaBranwell Bront . When she was two years old, the family moved to Haworth. Thisremained her home until she passed away in December of 1848 at the age of thirty.Both of Emilys parents influenced her literary educat ion. Her beatpublished one essay, and her father published four books and a little poetry. In1821, Maria died of cancer, leaving Emily and her four siblings motherless. Hersister, Elizabeth, came to live as a housekeeper and was trusty fortraining the girls in the household arts.While at home doing housework, Emily secretly worked on poetry. In 1845,Charlotte discovered some of Emilys poems and confessed that she, too, hadwritten some poetry. As it dour out, so had Anne. After much persuading, thepoems were published in a small book entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and ActonBell. Pseudonyms were used because the girls wanted their poetry to be interpretedseriously. Only two copies were sold. The failure led all three to begin work onnovels Emily on Wuthering Heights, Charlotte on Jane Eyre, and Anne on AgnesGrey. All three novels were lucky and published in 1847 and 1848.During this time, their brother, Branwell, had become addicted toalcohol and drugs, and was dying. Emily, the one closest to him, was the only