Journal
BRONTE STUDIES
Volume 41, Issue -, Pages 193-204Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/14748932.2016.1186941
Keywords
Charlotte Bronte; Elizabeth Gaskell; Patrick Bronte; The Life of Charlotte Bronte; Shirley
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This paper documents the course of Charlotte Bronte's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell and the events leading to Gaskell's undertaking of her remarkable biography, The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857). It goes on to suggest elements of Charlotte's life, especially those reflected in her youthful writing, which Gaskell did not know or chose not to represent. Finally the paper considers the mutual impact the two women had on one another as writers whose novels closely succeeded one another during the same few years - Jane Eyre (1847), Mary Barton (1848), Shirley (1849), Cranford (1850), Ruth (1853), Villette (1853), North and South (1854- 55) - and summarizes the differences between Gaskell's predominantly optimistic outlook on life, in which women combine a caring role with increased independence, and Charlotte's less hopeful perspective focusing on the plight of unmarried women.
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