Charlotte Brontë: Cinderella Or Ugly Sister?

[naomi24]

For anyone interested, a new biography.

//Claire Harman’s new biography casts Charlotte not as feminist heroine but as an unhappy, unfulfilled woman, disappointed in all the men closest to her//

http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/charlotte-bronte-cinderella-or-ugly-sister/

[Cloverjo]

It looks fascinating. I've already ordered my copy.
Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favourite books.

[naomi24]

Cloverjo, 'Jane Eyre' IS my all time favourite book. I can open it at any spot and just read. I've lost count of the number of times I've read it. I never tire of it.

[Cloverjo]

It is wonderful. I've never read any of Charlotte's other books. Have you?

[naomi24]

All of them. Jane's my favourite by far though.

Have you read Emily and Anne's books?

[Cloverjo]

I once started to read Wuthering Heights - it was big thing in my sixth form back in the eighties. I'm not sure I finished it, though. So much more to read. Thanks, Naomi.

[naomi24]

You're welcome. :o)

[jno]

an odd title from the Spectator; the answer is probably "neither". Clearly an imaginative and romantic writer, even from the Gondal and Angria sagas they wrote when they were in their teens (I think Charlotte was Angria), but also one constrained by Victorian mores, a life in remote country, and early death. I can't imagine she would have felt herself Cinderella or an ugly sister, though.

[jourdain2]

I answered this last night, then spent 45 mins. trying to submit it, gave up and went to bed!

I lived most of my life within a few miles of Haworth, so the Bronte's were part of life. I do not agree with Claire Harman. Her father and brother had certainly disappointed her, but when she died she was happily married and pregnant by the curate. No time for that marriage to go sour.

She was certainly bereft by the loss of her sisters and the loneliness of being the last surviving sibling, but she had had huge success and literary recognition.

[naomi24]

I have to say I thought The Spectator's introductory line rather strange. I don't think she was an Ugly Sister - and definitely not a Cinderella. Unlike Charlotte, Cinderella didn't settle for second best. She got her man.

[Canary42]

Thanks for the info Naomi - I'll keep an eye out for that at the library.