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Shirley - Background Information
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Marialyce
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Jan 27, 2013 01:24PM
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I have a large book, Charlotte and Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels. The drawback is that it is not annotated, and has only a short general introduction. However, last night I read the intro, and it mentioned that Charlotte based the character of Shirley on her sister Emily. I'm not sure if that's true, but if so, it is interesting!
Denise wrote: "I have a large book, Charlotte and Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels. The drawback is that it is not annotated, and has only a short general introduction. However, last night I read the intro, an..."I read that character "Shirley partly memorialized her sister Emily". It seems that Emily died while this novel was being written and a that an article in the "Quarterly Review' made Charlotte so angry that she had to be dissuaded not to answer it directly. Instead she incorporated what would have been her "biting reponse" into novel she was writing at the time which was Shirley.
Charlotte Bronte's novel "Shirley" was written in the wake of the success of Jane Eyre. Set vividly in a rural Yorkshire landscape the novel deals with the social impacts of the Industrial Revolution in particular the Luddite opposition to the introduction of machinery in the textile industry in Yorkshire.Against this background the novel is concerned with the friendship between Shirley Keeldar and Caroline Helstone. The character of Shirley holds particular interest for many since Charlotte described her as Emily Bronte would have been "if she had been placed in health and prosperity."
Towards writing the latter part of Shirley Charlotte was bereaved of her brother Branwell and her sisters Emily and Anne all within a few months of each other and this impacted the tone of writing adding additional interest to the book. Last but not least the wide range of vibrant minor characters such as Hiram Yorke and Hortense contribute to making Shirley a truly unique novel.
http://www.helium.com/items/1427291-s...
http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewc...If you are interested in what scholars have written about Shirley, this thesis may be of interest. It presupposes knowing the novel; it includes spoilers from the very opening sections. I haven't read it all, and some of it is more academic talk than I enjoy, but it is insightful enough and suggests enough possibilities of readings of the novel outside my normal range that I may try to return to it. (I am deeply enough engaged in some other reading that I am not certain I want to go there for Shirley; I find I can't or don't want to do this with every novel, regardless of how respected it is.)
I'm a bit late with this, but the other day I happened to pull out a couple of booklets I have about the Brontes, by Winifred Gerin (I. The Formative Years, and II. The Creative Work). The latter includes analyses of all of the novels, so I read the one about Shirley and thought I would share a few tidbits.As mentioned, Charlotte lost her sisters and brothers (within nine months of each other) while she was writing the novel; chapter XXIV, to be precise. This caused the tone of the novel to change. It started as a "high-spirited comedy of Yorkshire life set in the time of the Luddites, written with relish...". After taking some months off to nurse her sisters, "What had started off as a vigorous record of active, predominantly masculine life, finished as a low-toned analysis of unrequited love."
I love Gerin's statement about the character of Shirley, "whose fresh arrival in the district sparks off as much match-making as an Austen novel." LOL!
The Moore brothers are a recognizable type in Charlotte's works, based on her unrequited love interest in Belgium, M. Heger. Also recognizable is the master/pupil relationship that they have with their respective love interests. (Even Jane Eyre, although not Rochester's pupil, saw him as her master.)
Other characters in the novel were immediately recognizable to Charlotte's acquaintances. Mr. Helstone was very similar to Charlotte's father. The entire Yorke family were based on a family of her acquaintance, the Taylors of Gomersal. Hortense was based on Mlle. Haussee, of the Pensionnat Heger. She was so like her that some fellow pupils, the Wheelwright sisters, recognized her and realized that 'Currer Bell' was their acquaintance Charlotte Bronte.
Gerin is particularly critical of Charlotte's conception of Shirley, who, as we have discussed, was based on Emily. Charlotte attempted to blend Emily's traits - "daring nature, love of poetry, of animals, of Nature" with traits that were incompatible with Emily - "her society manners, her assurance, her elegance, beauty and wealth. Such an evocation was doomed to failure from the outset. Emily was neither an approachable person nor an explicable one; her silences were not the stuff of which fictional dialogue is made. As the central character in a novel such an illusive woman was out of place."
One more detail - Charlotte had originally named the novel Hollow's Mill, but her publisher did not think such a title would do well with metropolitan readers, and so she renamed it.
So very interesting and so very sad as well. Thank you, Denise and others who have added to the understanding and background of Shirley.
