编号
郑州华信学院
毕业论文
题 目
勃朗特三姐妹的生活及其文学作品
学生姓名
学 号 系 部
专 业
班 级
指导教师
苏然然 0806010204 外语系 商务英语 商务英语二班 杨静
二零一一年五月
Acknowledgement: My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisor, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.
Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to mr Li, who led me into the world of translation. I am also greatly indebted to teachers at the Department of English, who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past two years.
Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis.
Abstract: Victorian social is the rise period of female literature. In the reignof queen Victoria, the British history is the most brilliant .The Bronte bring the female lierature into the light.The development of female literature is not lies how many works published, but the work must have innvation. Women literature of Victoria social is whether quantity or quality are categorized, have many genius writers . They write a glorious page for English literature, make it more colorful , and this not only established women writer status and make English literature farwalk in front of the world in the same period.
Key word: Victorian literature, female literature, The Bronte, English literature
摘要：维多利亚时代是女性文学崛起的时代。在维多利亚女王统治时期英国非常繁荣。勃朗特姐妹将女性文学带入光明。女性文学发展不在于作品的多少而是必须有创新。这一时期涌现出很多天才女作家。他们为英国文学写下了光辉一页。英国文学因此在同时其领先以世界。
关键词：维多利亚时期，女性文学，勃朗特，英国文学。
Contents
1. Introduction to the Victorian Period ................................................................................. 1
1.1. Political， economical and cultural background .................................................... 1
1.2.Features of the Victorian Literature ......................................................................... 1
2. The Bronte sisters’ biography ............................................................................................ 2
3. Representative works of the three sisters ......................................................................... 5
3.1. Jane eyre .................................................................................................................. 5
3.1.1.Jane eyre’s content abstract ........................................................................... 5
3.1.2. Jane eyre’s social evaluation .......................................................................... 5
3.2.Wuthering heights .................................................................................................... 6
3.2.1. Wuthering heights’s content abstract ........................................................... 6
3.2.2. Wuthering heights’s social evaluation ........................................................... 6
3.3. Agnes Grey ............................................................................................................... 7
3.3.1. Agnes Grey’s content abstract ....................................................................... 7
3.3.2. Agnes Grey’s social evaluation ...................................................................... 7
4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 8
5. Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 8
1. Introduction to the Victorian Period
1.1. Political， economical and cultural background
Chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901. The period has been generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history。
The early years of the Victorian England was a time of rapid economic development as well as serious social problems. After the Reform Bill of 1832 passed the political power from the decaying aristocrats into the hands of the middle-class industrial capitalists， the Industrial Revolution soon geared up. Towards the mid-century， England had reached its highest point of development as a world power. And yet beneath the great prosperity and richness， there existed widespread poverty and wretchedness among the working class. The worsening living and working conditions， the mass unemployment and the new Poor Law of 1834 with its workhouse system finally gave rise to the Chartist Movement （1836-1848）。
During the next twenty years， England settled down to a time of prosperity and relative stability. The middle-class life of the time was characterized by prosperity， respectability and material progress. But the last three decades of the century witnessed the decline of the British Empire and the decay of the Victorian values.
Ideologically， the Victorians experienced fundamental changes. The rapid development of science and technology， new inventions and discoveries in geology， astronomy， biology and anthropology drastically shook people's religious convictions. Darwin's The Origin of Species （1859） and The Descent of Man （1871） shook the theoretical basis of the traditional faith. On the other hand， Utilitarianism was widely accepted and practiced. Almost everything was put to the test by the criterion of utility， that is， the extent to which it could promote the material happiness.
1.2.Features of the Victorian Literature
In this period， the novel became the most widely read & the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. While sticking to the principle of faithful
representation of the 18th-century realist novel， novelists in this period carried their duty forward to the criticism of the society and the defense of the mass. Although writing from different points of view and with different techniques， they shared one thing in common， that is， they were all concerned about the fate of the common people. They were angry at the inhuman social institutions， the decaying social morality as represented by the money-worship and Utilitarianism and the widespread misery， poverty and injustice. Their truthful depiction of people's life and bitter and strong criticism of the society had done much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problems & in the actual improvement of the society.来源:考试大-自考站
Victorian literature， in general， truthfully represents the reality and spirit of the age. The high-spirited vitality， the down-to-earth earnestness， the good-natured humor and unbounded imagination are all unprecedented. In almost every genre it paved the way for the coming century， where its spirits， values and experiments are to witness their bumper harvest.
2. The Bronte sisters’ biography
Charlotte and emily bronte were born in Thornton,Yorkshire. But they were undoubtedly of celtic blood,for their mother came from Cornwall andtheir father was born in Ireland.Mr bronte ,an eccentric and domineering clergman,wrote and published several volumes of undistinguished religious verse and prose.In1820 hemoved his wife and six children to Haworth,a remote and gloomy village on the Yorkshiremoors,where Mrsbronte died soon after.Her sister came to live at the passage tocare for the children,but she was no substitute for their mother,and they grew up wild,independent children devoted to each other and suspicious of outsiders.
Emily and charlotte and their two elder sisters were sent in 1824 to the clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge;bad food and poor living conditions aggravated the ill-healthof the two eldest girls,who were sent home in 1825 and died there.charlotte used,and perhaps exaggerated,the horrors of Cowan Bridge in Jane Eyer.Emily and Charlotte were removed from school,and their lessens wre resumed at Haworth in the
company of their brother Branwell,an intelligentand promising boy ayear younger than Charlotte,and their sister Anne,two years younger than Emily.The home teaching was sketchy,but the children read widely and wrote cycles of stories set in lands of their imagination.
In 1831 Charlotte went away once more to school.to Roe Head,where she stayed for a year,she returned to the school again in 1835 as an assistant teacher,talkingEmily with her,but Emily’shealth declined as she silently and rebelliously yearned for the freedom of the moors of Haworth,and at last she had to be sent home.After a little more than two years Charlotte left Roe Head,and for the next three yeara she and Emily worked intermittently as teachers and governesses;the only occupations open to ladies of the time.In 1842 their aunt provided them with money to go to Brussels for nine months to study French in a fashinable school for young ladies,the pensionnat Heger,Emily hated being away from and returned to Haworth with joy at the end of their stay but Charlotte consented to returned to Brussels as a teacher the following year,1843.Without Emoly she was loney,and after falling unhappily in love wuth her married employer,she left at the end of the year for which she had contracted.
All brontes scribbled poetry secretly,and in 1845 Charlotte found and read Emily’ manuscripts.To judge by her later emendations of her sister’s poems,Charlotte never completely understood them any more than she understood Emily herself;but she at least realised in them the presence of untrammeled,mystical lyric ism which she knew neither she nor Anne possessed,The poems were intensely personal,and Emily was furious at having them read,but aftermuch persuasion she agreed to let Charlottr publish them.To E mily’s poemsCharlotte added some of herown and Anne’s,and in May 1846 poems,by CURRER,Ellis,and action Bell was published at the expense of the sisters. Only two copies were sold. After this each of the sisters began a novel.Charlotte’s book,The professor,based on her Brussels experiences,was refused by a publisher and was not published until after her death ,undiscouraged,she set to work on a new novel,Jane Eyre,which was published in August,1847.This poetic,imaginativestory of the love of a
young governess for her married empployer also has undoubted connections with Charlotte’s experiences in Brussels.It was an immediate success with both readers and most of the critics.E mily and Anne had been more successful in getting their first novels accepted,and in December,1847,a joint book appeared,containing Anne’s Agnes Grey and Emily’s only novel ,Wuthering Heights;neither work attracted much attantion.Like Jane Eyre they were published under the sisters’s pseudonyms.As inspiration in her masterpiece,one of the great works of genius in English fiction,Emily drew equally on her own emtoinal,introverted nature and on the wild and mysterious moorland around her for the story of the passionate cathy and her savage lover Heathcliff,whose love lasts through their lives and beyound their death and burial in the quiet churchyard on the moors.Both Jane Eyre and the still greater Wuthering Heighs brought to the novel an introspection and an intense concentration on the inner life of emtoin which before them had been the province of poetry alone.
In September,1848,Branwell,whose early promise had degenerated into drunkenness and sloth,died,and in December Emily died of inflammation of the lungs.Anne,whohad published a second novel,The Tenant of Wild Fell Hall,in 1848,failed rapidly after Emily’s death,and six months later she died of tuberculosis.
For some years Charlotte continued to live with her father at Hawarth,working at her writing,Shirley,1849,was begun before the death of Emily,whose unconventional personality furnished Charlotte with the Charlotte for whom the book is named.The story is concerned with the Luddite mill riots in Yorkshire in 1807-1812,the setting for which Charlotte knew from her schooldays at Roe Head.For villette,1853,she returned to her own sad days in Brusels for the tale of a beautifully passionate and tender affection between a plain schoolmistress and an irascible middle-aged professor.
All Charlotte’s novels were successful,and she occasionally broke her Yorkshire seclussion for a visit to London,where she was something of a celebrity,once her real identity was known.Among the friendships she formed there was one with Thackray,to whom she had dedicated Jane Eyre .She had several proposals of marriage but she
rejected them until the summer of 1854,when she married her father’s curate,the Rev Arthur Bell Niahols.her health was alreadly poor,and after a few moonths of marriage acold which she caught during pregnancy brough about her death on March 31,1855,at thirty-nine,the last of the Bronte children.
3. Representative works of the three sisters
3.1. Jane eyre
3.1.1.Jane eyre’s content abstract
Jane Eyer was a born resister, whose parents went off when she was very young, and her aunt，the only relative she had，treated her as badly as a ragtag. Since Jane’s education in Lowwood Orphanage began, she didn’t get what she had been expecting——simply being regarded as a common person, just the same as any other girl around. The suffers from being humiliated and devastated teach Jane to be persevering and prize dignity over anything else.As a reward of revolting the ruthless oppression, Jane got a chance to be a tutor in Thornfield Garden. There she made the acquaintance of lovely Adele and that garden’s owner, Rochester, a man with warm heart despite a cold face outside. Jane expected to change the life from then on, but fate had decided otherwise: After Jane and Rochester fell in love with each other and got down to get marry, she unfortunately came to know in fact Rochester had got a legal wife, who seemed to be the shadow following Rochester and led to his moodiness all the time ----Rochester was also a despairing person in need of salvation. Jane did want to give him a hand, however, she made up her mind to leave, because she didn’t want to betray her own principles, because she was Jane Eyer. The film has finally got a symbolist end: Jane inherited a large number of legacies and finally returned. After finding Rochester’s misfortune brought by his original mad wife, Jane chose to stay with him forever.
3.1.2. Jane eyre’s social evaluation
she wasn’t pretty and of course the ordinary appearance didn’t make others feel good of her even her own aunt felt disgusted with it. And some others even thought that she was easy to look down on and to tease so when Miss Ingram met Jane Eyre she
seemed quite contemptuous for that she was obviously much more prettier than ‘the plain and ugly governess’. But as the little governess had said: ‘Do you think because I am poor obscure plain and little I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!’ and “You think because I'm poor, I'm plain, I have no feelings? I promise you, if god is gifted me with wealth and beauty, I should make it does as hard for you to leave me just as for me to leave you no w, but he didn not. If my spirit can address yours, as we both pass the grave stood before him equal”（Bronte,1994）this is the idea of equality in Jane Eyre’s mind. God hadn’t given her beauty and wealth but instead God gave her a kind mind and a thinking brain. Her idea of equality and self-respect impress us so much and let us feel the power inside her body.
3.2.Wuthering heights
3.2.1. Wuthering heights’s content abstract
It's a story about love and revenge . Heathcilff was adopted by Mr Earnshaw on the Livepool Street .He live with Mr Earnshaw 's son Hindly and his daughter Cathy.Hindley hated Heathcilff but his sister like Heathcilff.After Earnshaw died ,Hindley become the host of the family ,he treated Heathcliff as a farmer and insult him .At the same time ,Cathy and Heathcliff love each other.Linton ,the son of Thrushcross Grange,pay court to Cathy ,and visit her very often .Cathy made up her mind to get married with him,Heathcliff was very angry and went out.Heathcliff came back with a lot of money. He cheated Hindley'belongings by gambling.He did the things all for revenge.He married Linton'siston Isabella .Cathy died after she gave a birth to little Catherine.Isabella discerned Heathcliff and left him .She procreated little Linton and died .Heathcliff spoliated little Linton and badgered him to love little Catherine.Heathcliff hijacked little Catherine and forced her to be married with his son .After this ,he annexed all Linton'belongings and finish his revenge. At the same time , Heathcliff was importuned by Cathy .He stayed at his own room all day and didn't have meal or sleep.At last,he died in dumps and delirium.
3.2.2. Wuthering heights’s social evaluation
Published in 1847, Wutering heights’s was not well received by the reading public, many of whom condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when wuthering heights received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the great novels of English literature. Even so, wuthering heights continues to divide readers. It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet--it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written.
The story is wonderful, and the structure is also extremely excellent.The author Emily Bronte use a series of flashbacks and time shifts draws a powerful picture of this story. Because of its wonderful story, excellent structure and graceful language, the book left a deep impression on me. From this book, we understand the deeply love and enmity. We find that the enmity always touched by deeply love at the end of the story, true feelings and true love always moved everyone. So we must treat others with true feelings.
3.3. Agnes Grey
3.3.1. Agnes Grey’s content abstract
Agnes Grey is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century. This is a deeply personal novel written from the author's own experience and as such Agnes Grey has a power and poignancy which mark it out as a landmark work of literature dealing with the social and moral evolution of English society during the last century.
3.3.2. Agnes Grey’s social evaluation
The book tells us that a pampered girl named gray has to be a tutor in a rich family . She step into society with beautiful ideal and enthusiasm on, however snobbish master
and nutty students make her suffered mistery. Miss gray wasn’t deterred , with firmbelief, finally she won the true love and success
4. Conclusion
Victorian social is the rise period of female literature. In the reignof queen Victoria, the British history is the most brilliant .The Bronte bring the female lierature into the light.
The development of female literature is not lies how many works published, but the work must have innvation. Women literature of Victoria social is whether quantity or quality are categorized, have many genius writers . They write a glorious pagefor English literature, make it more colorful , and this not only established women writer status and make English literature farwalk in front of the world in the same period.
5. Bibliography
[1] Charlotte,Jane eyre,[M]. Britain: Oxford Paperbacks 1994.
[2] 万莉，陈范霞，《英美文学选读》， 北京：光明日报出版社, 2004,.4
[3] 吴伟仁译，《英国文学史及选读》。 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1988.12。
编号
郑州华信学院
毕业论文
题 目
勃朗特三姐妹的生活及其文学作品
学生姓名
学 号 系 部
专 业
班 级
指导教师
苏然然 0806010204 外语系 商务英语 商务英语二班 杨静
二零一一年五月
Acknowledgement: My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisor, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.
Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to mr Li, who led me into the world of translation. I am also greatly indebted to teachers at the Department of English, who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past two years.
Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis.
Abstract: Victorian social is the rise period of female literature. In the reignof queen Victoria, the British history is the most brilliant .The Bronte bring the female lierature into the light.The development of female literature is not lies how many works published, but the work must have innvation. Women literature of Victoria social is whether quantity or quality are categorized, have many genius writers . They write a glorious page for English literature, make it more colorful , and this not only established women writer status and make English literature farwalk in front of the world in the same period.
Key word: Victorian literature, female literature, The Bronte, English literature
摘要：维多利亚时代是女性文学崛起的时代。在维多利亚女王统治时期英国非常繁荣。勃朗特姐妹将女性文学带入光明。女性文学发展不在于作品的多少而是必须有创新。这一时期涌现出很多天才女作家。他们为英国文学写下了光辉一页。英国文学因此在同时其领先以世界。
关键词：维多利亚时期，女性文学，勃朗特，英国文学。
Contents
1. Introduction to the Victorian Period ................................................................................. 1
1.1. Political， economical and cultural background .................................................... 1
1.2.Features of the Victorian Literature ......................................................................... 1
2. The Bronte sisters’ biography ............................................................................................ 2
3. Representative works of the three sisters ......................................................................... 5
3.1. Jane eyre .................................................................................................................. 5
3.1.1.Jane eyre’s content abstract ........................................................................... 5
3.1.2. Jane eyre’s social evaluation .......................................................................... 5
3.2.Wuthering heights .................................................................................................... 6
3.2.1. Wuthering heights’s content abstract ........................................................... 6
3.2.2. Wuthering heights’s social evaluation ........................................................... 6
3.3. Agnes Grey ............................................................................................................... 7
3.3.1. Agnes Grey’s content abstract ....................................................................... 7
3.3.2. Agnes Grey’s social evaluation ...................................................................... 7
4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 8
5. Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 8
1. Introduction to the Victorian Period
1.1. Political， economical and cultural background
Chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901. The period has been generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history。
The early years of the Victorian England was a time of rapid economic development as well as serious social problems. After the Reform Bill of 1832 passed the political power from the decaying aristocrats into the hands of the middle-class industrial capitalists， the Industrial Revolution soon geared up. Towards the mid-century， England had reached its highest point of development as a world power. And yet beneath the great prosperity and richness， there existed widespread poverty and wretchedness among the working class. The worsening living and working conditions， the mass unemployment and the new Poor Law of 1834 with its workhouse system finally gave rise to the Chartist Movement （1836-1848）。
During the next twenty years， England settled down to a time of prosperity and relative stability. The middle-class life of the time was characterized by prosperity， respectability and material progress. But the last three decades of the century witnessed the decline of the British Empire and the decay of the Victorian values.
Ideologically， the Victorians experienced fundamental changes. The rapid development of science and technology， new inventions and discoveries in geology， astronomy， biology and anthropology drastically shook people's religious convictions. Darwin's The Origin of Species （1859） and The Descent of Man （1871） shook the theoretical basis of the traditional faith. On the other hand， Utilitarianism was widely accepted and practiced. Almost everything was put to the test by the criterion of utility， that is， the extent to which it could promote the material happiness.
1.2.Features of the Victorian Literature
In this period， the novel became the most widely read & the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. While sticking to the principle of faithful
representation of the 18th-century realist novel， novelists in this period carried their duty forward to the criticism of the society and the defense of the mass. Although writing from different points of view and with different techniques， they shared one thing in common， that is， they were all concerned about the fate of the common people. They were angry at the inhuman social institutions， the decaying social morality as represented by the money-worship and Utilitarianism and the widespread misery， poverty and injustice. Their truthful depiction of people's life and bitter and strong criticism of the society had done much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problems & in the actual improvement of the society.来源:考试大-自考站
Victorian literature， in general， truthfully represents the reality and spirit of the age. The high-spirited vitality， the down-to-earth earnestness， the good-natured humor and unbounded imagination are all unprecedented. In almost every genre it paved the way for the coming century， where its spirits， values and experiments are to witness their bumper harvest.
2. The Bronte sisters’ biography
Charlotte and emily bronte were born in Thornton,Yorkshire. But they were undoubtedly of celtic blood,for their mother came from Cornwall andtheir father was born in Ireland.Mr bronte ,an eccentric and domineering clergman,wrote and published several volumes of undistinguished religious verse and prose.In1820 hemoved his wife and six children to Haworth,a remote and gloomy village on the Yorkshiremoors,where Mrsbronte died soon after.Her sister came to live at the passage tocare for the children,but she was no substitute for their mother,and they grew up wild,independent children devoted to each other and suspicious of outsiders.
Emily and charlotte and their two elder sisters were sent in 1824 to the clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge;bad food and poor living conditions aggravated the ill-healthof the two eldest girls,who were sent home in 1825 and died there.charlotte used,and perhaps exaggerated,the horrors of Cowan Bridge in Jane Eyer.Emily and Charlotte were removed from school,and their lessens wre resumed at Haworth in the
company of their brother Branwell,an intelligentand promising boy ayear younger than Charlotte,and their sister Anne,two years younger than Emily.The home teaching was sketchy,but the children read widely and wrote cycles of stories set in lands of their imagination.
In 1831 Charlotte went away once more to school.to Roe Head,where she stayed for a year,she returned to the school again in 1835 as an assistant teacher,talkingEmily with her,but Emily’shealth declined as she silently and rebelliously yearned for the freedom of the moors of Haworth,and at last she had to be sent home.After a little more than two years Charlotte left Roe Head,and for the next three yeara she and Emily worked intermittently as teachers and governesses;the only occupations open to ladies of the time.In 1842 their aunt provided them with money to go to Brussels for nine months to study French in a fashinable school for young ladies,the pensionnat Heger,Emily hated being away from and returned to Haworth with joy at the end of their stay but Charlotte consented to returned to Brussels as a teacher the following year,1843.Without Emoly she was loney,and after falling unhappily in love wuth her married employer,she left at the end of the year for which she had contracted.
All brontes scribbled poetry secretly,and in 1845 Charlotte found and read Emily’ manuscripts.To judge by her later emendations of her sister’s poems,Charlotte never completely understood them any more than she understood Emily herself;but she at least realised in them the presence of untrammeled,mystical lyric ism which she knew neither she nor Anne possessed,The poems were intensely personal,and Emily was furious at having them read,but aftermuch persuasion she agreed to let Charlottr publish them.To E mily’s poemsCharlotte added some of herown and Anne’s,and in May 1846 poems,by CURRER,Ellis,and action Bell was published at the expense of the sisters. Only two copies were sold. After this each of the sisters began a novel.Charlotte’s book,The professor,based on her Brussels experiences,was refused by a publisher and was not published until after her death ,undiscouraged,she set to work on a new novel,Jane Eyre,which was published in August,1847.This poetic,imaginativestory of the love of a
young governess for her married empployer also has undoubted connections with Charlotte’s experiences in Brussels.It was an immediate success with both readers and most of the critics.E mily and Anne had been more successful in getting their first novels accepted,and in December,1847,a joint book appeared,containing Anne’s Agnes Grey and Emily’s only novel ,Wuthering Heights;neither work attracted much attantion.Like Jane Eyre they were published under the sisters’s pseudonyms.As inspiration in her masterpiece,one of the great works of genius in English fiction,Emily drew equally on her own emtoinal,introverted nature and on the wild and mysterious moorland around her for the story of the passionate cathy and her savage lover Heathcliff,whose love lasts through their lives and beyound their death and burial in the quiet churchyard on the moors.Both Jane Eyre and the still greater Wuthering Heighs brought to the novel an introspection and an intense concentration on the inner life of emtoin which before them had been the province of poetry alone.
In September,1848,Branwell,whose early promise had degenerated into drunkenness and sloth,died,and in December Emily died of inflammation of the lungs.Anne,whohad published a second novel,The Tenant of Wild Fell Hall,in 1848,failed rapidly after Emily’s death,and six months later she died of tuberculosis.
For some years Charlotte continued to live with her father at Hawarth,working at her writing,Shirley,1849,was begun before the death of Emily,whose unconventional personality furnished Charlotte with the Charlotte for whom the book is named.The story is concerned with the Luddite mill riots in Yorkshire in 1807-1812,the setting for which Charlotte knew from her schooldays at Roe Head.For villette,1853,she returned to her own sad days in Brusels for the tale of a beautifully passionate and tender affection between a plain schoolmistress and an irascible middle-aged professor.
All Charlotte’s novels were successful,and she occasionally broke her Yorkshire seclussion for a visit to London,where she was something of a celebrity,once her real identity was known.Among the friendships she formed there was one with Thackray,to whom she had dedicated Jane Eyre .She had several proposals of marriage but she
rejected them until the summer of 1854,when she married her father’s curate,the Rev Arthur Bell Niahols.her health was alreadly poor,and after a few moonths of marriage acold which she caught during pregnancy brough about her death on March 31,1855,at thirty-nine,the last of the Bronte children.
3. Representative works of the three sisters
3.1. Jane eyre
3.1.1.Jane eyre’s content abstract
Jane Eyer was a born resister, whose parents went off when she was very young, and her aunt，the only relative she had，treated her as badly as a ragtag. Since Jane’s education in Lowwood Orphanage began, she didn’t get what she had been expecting——simply being regarded as a common person, just the same as any other girl around. The suffers from being humiliated and devastated teach Jane to be persevering and prize dignity over anything else.As a reward of revolting the ruthless oppression, Jane got a chance to be a tutor in Thornfield Garden. There she made the acquaintance of lovely Adele and that garden’s owner, Rochester, a man with warm heart despite a cold face outside. Jane expected to change the life from then on, but fate had decided otherwise: After Jane and Rochester fell in love with each other and got down to get marry, she unfortunately came to know in fact Rochester had got a legal wife, who seemed to be the shadow following Rochester and led to his moodiness all the time ----Rochester was also a despairing person in need of salvation. Jane did want to give him a hand, however, she made up her mind to leave, because she didn’t want to betray her own principles, because she was Jane Eyer. The film has finally got a symbolist end: Jane inherited a large number of legacies and finally returned. After finding Rochester’s misfortune brought by his original mad wife, Jane chose to stay with him forever.
3.1.2. Jane eyre’s social evaluation
she wasn’t pretty and of course the ordinary appearance didn’t make others feel good of her even her own aunt felt disgusted with it. And some others even thought that she was easy to look down on and to tease so when Miss Ingram met Jane Eyre she
seemed quite contemptuous for that she was obviously much more prettier than ‘the plain and ugly governess’. But as the little governess had said: ‘Do you think because I am poor obscure plain and little I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!’ and “You think because I'm poor, I'm plain, I have no feelings? I promise you, if god is gifted me with wealth and beauty, I should make it does as hard for you to leave me just as for me to leave you no w, but he didn not. If my spirit can address yours, as we both pass the grave stood before him equal”（Bronte,1994）this is the idea of equality in Jane Eyre’s mind. God hadn’t given her beauty and wealth but instead God gave her a kind mind and a thinking brain. Her idea of equality and self-respect impress us so much and let us feel the power inside her body.
3.2.Wuthering heights
3.2.1. Wuthering heights’s content abstract
It's a story about love and revenge . Heathcilff was adopted by Mr Earnshaw on the Livepool Street .He live with Mr Earnshaw 's son Hindly and his daughter Cathy.Hindley hated Heathcilff but his sister like Heathcilff.After Earnshaw died ,Hindley become the host of the family ,he treated Heathcliff as a farmer and insult him .At the same time ,Cathy and Heathcliff love each other.Linton ,the son of Thrushcross Grange,pay court to Cathy ,and visit her very often .Cathy made up her mind to get married with him,Heathcliff was very angry and went out.Heathcliff came back with a lot of money. He cheated Hindley'belongings by gambling.He did the things all for revenge.He married Linton'siston Isabella .Cathy died after she gave a birth to little Catherine.Isabella discerned Heathcliff and left him .She procreated little Linton and died .Heathcliff spoliated little Linton and badgered him to love little Catherine.Heathcliff hijacked little Catherine and forced her to be married with his son .After this ,he annexed all Linton'belongings and finish his revenge. At the same time , Heathcliff was importuned by Cathy .He stayed at his own room all day and didn't have meal or sleep.At last,he died in dumps and delirium.
3.2.2. Wuthering heights’s social evaluation
Published in 1847, Wutering heights’s was not well received by the reading public, many of whom condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when wuthering heights received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the great novels of English literature. Even so, wuthering heights continues to divide readers. It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet--it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written.
The story is wonderful, and the structure is also extremely excellent.The author Emily Bronte use a series of flashbacks and time shifts draws a powerful picture of this story. Because of its wonderful story, excellent structure and graceful language, the book left a deep impression on me. From this book, we understand the deeply love and enmity. We find that the enmity always touched by deeply love at the end of the story, true feelings and true love always moved everyone. So we must treat others with true feelings.
3.3. Agnes Grey
3.3.1. Agnes Grey’s content abstract
Agnes Grey is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century. This is a deeply personal novel written from the author's own experience and as such Agnes Grey has a power and poignancy which mark it out as a landmark work of literature dealing with the social and moral evolution of English society during the last century.
3.3.2. Agnes Grey’s social evaluation
The book tells us that a pampered girl named gray has to be a tutor in a rich family . She step into society with beautiful ideal and enthusiasm on, however snobbish master
and nutty students make her suffered mistery. Miss gray wasn’t deterred , with firmbelief, finally she won the true love and success
4. Conclusion
Victorian social is the rise period of female literature. In the reignof queen Victoria, the British history is the most brilliant .The Bronte bring the female lierature into the light.
The development of female literature is not lies how many works published, but the work must have innvation. Women literature of Victoria social is whether quantity or quality are categorized, have many genius writers . They write a glorious pagefor English literature, make it more colorful , and this not only established women writer status and make English literature farwalk in front of the world in the same period.
5. Bibliography
[1] Charlotte,Jane eyre,[M]. Britain: Oxford Paperbacks 1994.
[2] 万莉，陈范霞，《英美文学选读》， 北京：光明日报出版社, 2004,.4
[3] 吴伟仁译，《英国文学史及选读》。 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1988.12。