English Language and Literature Asma Hussein Romantic and Realistic Aspects in the Bronte Sisters ’ Novels Master ‘s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof…. [626215]

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Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Asma Hussein

Romantic and Realistic Aspects in
the Bronte Sisters ’ Novels

Master ‘s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Frank ová, CSc., M.A.

2011

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Author‘s signature

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank first and most my husband Adel for his support all through
my study. I would like also to thank all who have helped me with their inspiring
ideas and comments during writing this thesis, namely prof. Mgr. M ilada
Franková, CSc., M.A for her kind help and valuable advice which she had
provided me as my supervisor.

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Table of Contents

Introduction …………………………………. ………………………… 5
Chapter One: Introductory Pages and Pen names ……….. 7
Chapter Two: Reality ……………………………………………….. 19
2.1: Social Reality ………………………………………………… 23
2.2: Material Reality ……………………………… ……………… 44
2.3: Psychological Reality ………………………………………. 54
2.4: Integrating Realities ……………………………………….. 70
Chapter Three: ‘Man’ and the ‘Language of Man’ …………. 79
Chapter Four: Objectivity vs. Subjectivity …………………… 91
Chapter Five: Now and Then …………………………………….. 99
Chapter Six: Truth and Imagination ………………………….. 112
Conclusion …………………….. ……………………………………….. 130
English Résumé ………………………………………………………. 133
Czech Résumé ………………………………………………………… 135
Works Cited …………………… ………………………………………. 137

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Introduction
―[It] is as difficult … to trace the dividing -line between the real and
the romantic as to plant a milestone between north and south.‖ So were
James‘s words (quoted by Grant) prefacing his The American . And so was my
task of pinning down differences between Realism and Romanticism, despite
the common belief in inherent distinctive characteristics for each.
This study chose the novels of the Bronte sisters as a literary
specimen to test the di fferent theories accounting for what falls within the
scope of Realism and what of Romanticism. Why the Bronte sisters? Because
they lived within the same family circle, hence have the same experiences and
social circumstances. Similarity is enhanced by th eir femaleness. Their being
siblings would overcome the ‗mistaken‘ association b etween Romanticism -upper
class of luxury and ivory towers and Realism -middle and lower classes of
poverty and disease dichotomy, which is the first of melting, vanishing ‗divid ing-
lines.‘ These three sisters produce three different literary renderings of
somehow identical experiences (backgrounds).
In the literary canon, some of the Brontes‘ novels are firmly
established as romantic; others realistic. Such established categories ;
nevertheless, contradict with the Brontes‘ announcing their novels realistic. This
announcement is one more common area shared by the Brontes. In the
prefaces to their novels, there is always to be found a desire to be perceived as
realist and to draw at tention to the realistic elements making up their stories.

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The prefaces are thus the starting points for this study, which was at
first to be a critical study of Realism as it appears in the Bronte sisters‘ novels.
Later on, however, the scope of the study gets enlarged in the process. This
enlargement aims at making the realistic aspects clearer by contrasting them to
an ‗obvious‘ opposite; namely Romanticism. Surprisingly, both Realism and
Romanticism are found to exist side by side (sometimes intermingle d) in each
novel. The novels‘ digestion of ‗contrasting‘ elements in a harmonious whole is
hard to be explained unless James‘s account is to be taken seri ously.
The next point is, then, to read into the literature of Realism and
Romanticism theories and tr y to extract what are the agreed -upon, defining
boundaries that frame each movement. The most recurrent elements are:
reality and its depiction and achievement; the real, everyday language vs. the
figurative alternative; objectivity vs. subjectivity; the contemporar y vs. the
medieval; truth vs. imagination. These elements are analysed in detail in the
following chapters to see if they are really sufficient to keep Realism and
Romanticism as distinct from each other. By implication, the study addresses
the q uestion: Can the realist make no use of a ‗romantic‘ element? And vice
versa.

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Chapter One
Introductory Pages and Pen names
―I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for
ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain
and homely‖. Thus does Charlotte Bronte preface her first novel The Professor
(written: 18 47, published posthumously : 1857). Since it is the first novel, the
‗had-got-over‘ phrase seems out of place here. Keeping in mind that Charlotte
Bronte started her literary life as a young girl and co -created and co -authored
with her brother Branwell the fairy -tale land of ―Angria,‖ all fall s in place
smoothly, however. This Preface records the moment in Charlotte Bronte‘s
career when she paid a ―Farewell to [romanti c] Angria ‖ (Gilbert and Gubar,
315) to embrace in its place the realistic mode of literary writing of the Victorian
era. So, the duality of romantic and realistic modes has already met in Charlotte
Bronte or, at least, the possibility of this duality. Stepping from one mode to the
other is more of a move , then, than a shift ( i.e. not so drastic) .
Just as her stories, so would her future heroes, from now on, be
plain and homely, she declares. There is n o place for heroes to get money.
They must earn it with effort (Bronte, 1). No place is there, too, for sudden
turns in the hero‘s fortune that would ―lift him in a moment to wealth and high
station‖ (Bronte, 1) as forces to advance her plot on because it is not what
happens in the course and path of every -day life. Money is one such force.
Marrying ―a b eautiful girl or a lady of rank ‖ is yet another one. Indeed, the
latter example is discarded with particular disease that will receive detailed

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analysis in the third section of the next chapter. This outline of h eroes goes
then fine with her emerging taste for the realistic novel.
Likewise, in her Preface to Jane Eyre (published : 1847), Charlotte
Bronte opens with a thank -you note addressed to three groups of readers
among whom were ―the Public, for the indulgent ear‖ they give to her ―plain
tale with few pretensions‖ (1). Unlike Bessie's bedtime stories and fairytales
taking place in romantic realm s, which were told to little Jane, Charlotte
Bronte‘s settings have concrete topographical correspondences which can b e
found in ―lone, ferny dells in moors … appearing before the eyes of belated
travellers‖ (11).
Again in Shirley (published: 18 49), Charlotte Bronte gives her word
to present a fatty realistic novel that will disappoint the reader who hopes for
―anythin g like a romance … sentiment … poetry … reverie … passion …
stimulus … melodrama‖ (3). She reduces her readers‘ expectations to a
moderate, if not humble, ―lowly standard‖ ( ibid). What awaits them is
―Something real, cool … solid … unromant ic as Monday morning‖ (ibid) in lieu.
The ― taste of the exciting ‖ (ibid) seems to be an acceptance that the novel
genre requires after all distinguished forms of expression other than dry,
colourless, mind -numbing historical or autobiographical records. To seek the
originals of her characters and ―por traits‖, readers are directed to ―real life
only‖, never to assume her creation ―a figment of imagination‖ (Bronte, 115).
So like her disillusioned readers regarding her plots, Charlotte Bronte is
disillusioned as to the unfavourable critical reception of her heroine Shirley by
those ―worshipping the heroine of such [i.e. romantic] a poem –novel –drama ,

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thinking it fine –divine!‖ (220). Charlotte‘s objection to such heroine figures and
rejection of the deludin g romantic works stuffing libraries of the time is that
―Fine and divine it may be, but often quite artificial –false as the rose in my best
bonnet there‖ (ibid). Keeping in mind Charlotte‘s claim to reluctance to draw
ideal models with her words, her char acters will be, she declares: ―more or less
imperfect,‖ that any ―novelist may be excused from sullying his page with the
record of their deed‖ (Bronte, 38). This claim extends to all the characters of
Shirley (Bronte, 37). She vindicates her ‗deficient‘ c haracters on the basis of
natural laws according to which ―every specimen of nature that breathes‖
contains ―vice and virtue … blended, in smaller or greater proportions,‖ that are
―not determined by station‖ (ibid).
It is only in Villette (published: 18 53), on the contrary , where
Charlotte Bronte ‘s heroine and narrator, Lucy Snowe, plainly declares her story
a poetic romance, even a mere ―elaborate reproduction of poetic first
impressions‖ (41) for which the reader, she foretells, would not be thankful.
Not less careful than her sister, Anne Bronte, too, carefully prefaces
her two novels with the promises of a realistic rendering of real -life stories. As
early as the first paragraph in the first page in Agnes Grey (published: 1847),
Anne Bronte makes it c lear to her readers what they are about to read is a
―history‖ (2) not a story of fiction. She moves a step farther than Charlotte who,
after all, allows her story the nature of a novel and its need of excitement. It is
also clearly and gravely stated that the story is that of the author herself , which
makes the novel a kind of a public confession (ibid). The author does not put
this ‗claim‘ forward to feign or affect an extraordinary bravery of presenting her

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story candidly to the readers. She confesses th at her liberal openness is made
easier by her ―obscurity‖ (ibid). At the time of publishing Agnes Grey , Anne
Bronte‘s identity as the author was masked by the male pseudonym of Acton
Bell. She also makes it clear that her use of fictitious characters‘ nam es
coupled with the fact that what she is about to relate had happened some years
ago accounts for her ―venture[ing]‖ to disclose this history ‗honestly‘ (ibid).
‗Obscure‘ even, Anne confesses to her readers, to her dearest of relatives and
acquaintances b ecause then she will be deprived of the advantage of obscurity
she entertains as an unknown authoress (ibid). Such confessions made, without
being asked for, enhance the authoress‘s credibility.
Anne Bronte‘s artist heroine Helen, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
(published: 1848), tells Gilbert ( her future lover) how she ―cannot afford to
paint for [her] own amusement‖ (37). In her well -known Preface to the second
edition of The Tenant , Anne Bronte enunciates, echoing Helen partly, that her
aim of writing is : ―not simply to amuse the Reader;‖ nor ―to gratify [her] own
taste, nor yet to ingratiate [herself] with the Press and the Public‖ (1). T he aim
is only ―to tell the truth‖ ( ibid). Nevertheless, she does not make efforts to
avoid presenting delight or forc e it out of her text when it appears in context
but sets beneficiality as her priority, announcing: ―if I am able to amuse, I will
try to benefit too‖ (2). She also shows awareness of and preparedness to the
perils of this decision of which her first editi on was a good proof. In this regard,
she was more pessimistic than Charlotte Bronte. Whereas Charlotte anticipates
no thankful reception, Anne expects telling the truth to ―incur … scorn and
obloquy‖ (1). Agnes Grey , Anne Bronte‘s first novel, had alread y received its

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share of ―scorn and obloquy‖. Agnes Grey , Anne Bronte recalls, in The Tenant ‘s
Preface, ―was accused of extravagant over – colouring [ironically, however] in
those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous
avoidance of all exaggeration‖ (2). So was the case with her second novel, The
Tenan t. Scorn initiated for the novel‘s depiction of ―CON AMORE, with 'a morbid
love of the coarse, if not of the brutal‖ ( ibid).
Despite all of this, Anne Bronte is determined t o adopt this ‗truth‘
canon out of her altruistic compassion and satisfaction that: ―if I have warned
one rash youth from following in their steps [the profligate characters], or
prevented one thoughtless girl from falling into the very natural error of my
heroine, the book has not been written in vain‖ ( The Tenant , 2). Her philosophy
is put thus: ―when we have to do with vice and vicious characters … it is better
to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear‖ (2). More
‗poetically‘ a nd rhetorically phrased, Anne Bronte asks her readers: ―Is it better
to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or
to cover them with branches and flowers?‖ ( ibid). The novelist‘s task, Anne
Bronte holds, is to choose between ―the most honest‖ and ―the safest‖ ( ibid).
Anne chose the former for the latter (s arcastically called ―the safest‖ ) is a
―delicate concealment of facts‖ ( ibid).
It seems unfair to leave Emily Bronte out of this chapter due to her
preface -less nove l. Equally unfair, I am inclined to believe however, is to quote
her sister‘s (i.e. Charlotte‘s) words prefacing the posthumous new edition of
Emily‘s Wuthering Heights (first published in 18 47) as if definite statements of
Emily‘s own intention and messag e behind this work. In that Preface, Charlotte

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Bronte stands to refute the charges against Emily of failure in depicting human
nature realistically. Charlotte Bronte offers a brief portrayal of the setting (i.e.
the West Riding of Yorkshire) where Emily gr ew up and of the local people‘s
manners and personalities so as to substantiate the ―rude and strange‖
inhabitants of Wuthering Heights . In this study, Emily Bronte‘s work will be
analyzed in the same light as that of her sisters but never to prove or disp rove
realistic claims since none are made by her.
A glance at the opening pages introducing the Bronte sisters ‘ novels
have something in common; namely, a desire to highlight their Realism. In
other words, to appear realistic. It is this glance that first inspires the whole
topic of this thesis.
First there is the question: Why is it important to appear Realistic?
And, or put differently: Why ‗Romance‘ and ‗Romantic‘ are denied as if a label
or a charge?
Second, this study will attempt to scrutinize the rea listic features in
the Brontes‘ novels so as to verify or refute their claims.
Third, a search for Romantic features in their novels will be made, as
well, to see if it retains futile results.
When thinking of the mid -Victorian fiction, which he extends from
1845 to 1880, Ioan Williams, in his The Realist Novel in England , positively
states ―Realism rises to mind‖ (Williams, Introduction, x). This may answer the
first question. The Realistic mode of representation (i.e. Realism ) was the
fashion that sold well then. It seems that Charlotte Bronte dares the step of

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announcing Villette to be romantic for her reputation has already been
established. Nothing to strive for. Nothing to lose, in a sense.
To begin with matching claims to works, the opening pages of t he
Brontes‘ novels reflect a realistic accommodation on the side of the Bronte
sisters with the conventions and codes of their time. The novels were signed by
Currer Bell, Ellis Bell, and Acton Bell (initials correspond to the authoresses‘ real
names‘ init ials). Gilbert and Gubar, in The Mad Woman in the Attic , argue that
what helped the Brontes‘ reviewers of the day in discovering Charlotte‘s sex
upon publishing Shirley was that it is
far more consciously than either of her earlier works a novel about the
‗woman question‘ in all its intricacies which would hardly be achieved
but by one among their circle and of their sex. The novel … offers a
true picture of ‗those women famished for a sense of purpose in their
lives‘ during the double -crisis of war and depression in mercantile
economy in England in 1811 -1812 with ‗the wrath of workers does the
work of destruction for all those exploited‘ (Gilbert and Gubar, 374).
The turmoil of working classes , the anxiety and threat of loss felt by
merchants and factor y owners as to product ion, marketing and distribution, and
even the instability of the advantageous status entertained by higher classes
could not distract the readers‘ attention from the misery of women which is the
most visible of all. This visibility, i ndeed, is seen as due to its development out
of the other three or , as put by Gilbert and Gubar , Charlotte Bronte wishes in
Shirley ―to consider why the curates‘ feast initiates her heroines‘ fasts‖ (Gilbert
and Gubar, 374).

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It takes a whole novel to bring out women‘s misery, but only three
pseudonyms were enough to show not the ―women question‖ but, more
specifically, the ‗women writer question .‘ This grants the novels a realistic
representational status of their times. That question has been a topic addre ssed
by Charlotte and Anne Bronte in the course of their novels, as well. In The
Professor , Mdle. Zoraide objects to William‘s encouraging Frances‘
compositions. She reminds him that: ―LITERERY ambition especially, is not a
feeling to be cherished in the m ind of a woman‖ and that getting her
―stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity‖ would ruin her marital
chances ( 86) especially as Frances already lacks the social qualifications as a
wife; ―scanty as are her resources, obscure as are her connectio ns, uncertain as
is her health‖ ( ibid). Indeed, Mdle. Zoraide speaks of the distracting danger in
encouraging in a woman ambition, any ambition (ibid). Frances and women in
general, would be ―much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the quiet
discharge of social duties consists her real vocation‖ (ibid).
The significant statements of Mdle. Zoraide provide insight as to the
explanation of masculine pen names. It sounds that claims to Realism sell as
well as claims made to a masculine identity. In fact, the two claims are seen as
inseparable by Gilbert and Gubar. They argue that in The Professor , Charlotte
Bronte ―strove for realism by literally attempting to impersonate a man – and
an austere, censorious man at that‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 372). Desp ite the
clarity of her and her sisters‘ use of male names to conceal ―their troublesome
femaleness behind the masks of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell‖; however,
Charlotte Bronte was reluctant to confess the maleness of the names and

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―disingenuously insisted they had been chosen for their androgynous neutrality
but which most of their earliest readers assumed were male‖ (Gilbert and
Gubar, 65, my emphasis). But, whether it is a slip or an unconscious
confession, Charlotte Bronte in her ― Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell ‖,
talks of this authoress crisis:
Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of
Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a
sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively
masculine , while we did not like to declare ourselves women , because –
-without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking
was not what is called 'feminine' –we had a vague impression that
authoresses are liable to be looked on w ith prejudice; we had noticed
how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of
personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.
(my emphasis ).
The contradiction is symptomatic of a denial crisis as well. A crisis
that many reasons are said to stand behind. All claims , however, share the
confirmation that it is an unhealthy state of being. Concisely phrased and
precisely connotative is Gilbert‘s and Gubar‘s coinage: ―dis -ease‖ (Gilbert and
Gubar, 74).
Charlotte Bronte‘s ―dis-ease‖ shows up in all her novels. Even before
using a male narrator in her first novel , the Angria Tales of her childhood were
reported by a male voice (Gilbert and Gubar, 316). There was even a noticeable
effort on her part, in The Professor , to conc eal her female identity as the

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authoress of the book. In contrast to the sympathetic eye she casts on women
misery in Shirley , her hero (and narrator) in The Professor in an exaggerated
manner seems anti -sympathetic. Charlotte Bronte attempts in The Profes sor to
hide her own anxieties by creating a hero who repeatedly ridicules the female
sex. Gilbert and Gubar list the different forms in which Charlotte Bronte‘s ―dis –
ease‖ shows up as follows: Rochester‘s acting the gypsy fortune -teller; Shirley
taking pai ns to dress like a gallant Cavalier; Lucy Snowe taking up the role of a
fop in pursuit of a coquette in the school play; and above all Charlote‘s playing
the role of Charles Wellsley in the Brontes‘ childhood games with the wooden
soldiers (381). To that list can be added Shirley‘s ―masculine family cognomen
[her parents] would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been
blessed‖ (Bronte, 125). They find in these impersonation attempts either ―a
fascination with breaking the conventions of traditio nal sexual roles‖ or ―to
resolve the anger and anxiety‖ of her situation ―by examining her situation
through sympathetic male eyes‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 317). Of the reversal of
sexual roles affected by assuming a male name, Shirley‘s case can be cited.
Shirley talks of how bestowing on her the man name and title of Shirley
Keeldar, Esquire was ―enough to inspire [her] with a touch of manhood (Bronte,
126).
Publishing under a female name in the nineteenth century means
one of two things. Either the author‘s ―sex and way,‖ be mistaken, or what is
worse ―becoming an ‗unsexed‘ or perversely sexed female‖ (Gilbert and Gubar,
34). Indeed, Gilbert and Gubar tell how a women writer was susceptible to
―charges of plagiarism‖ when producing creative works (Gilbert and Gubar,

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62).With a tone of shame thus, Charlotte Bronte concedes to Robert Southey in
a letter dated 1837: ―sometimes when I‘m teaching or sewing [which are the
duties becoming of a woman], I would rather be reading or writing‖ (qtd. by
Gilbert and Gubar, 64). She lets her literary ambitions disturbs her domestic
duties. To solve this problem, the most widely adopted strategy was assuming
the male identity.
Unlike Charlotte, Anne Bronte seems to come to terms with her
anxiety and moves a step further into exposing the unjust situation. Her pen
name is brought into more focus by her creating a heroine, the outstanding
Helen, in her own model and indeed as a valid model for all female artists.
Helen of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , like her authoress, uses ill usive signature
in her paintings. In that same light, we can explain Helen‘s sketches of
Huntingdon at the back of her paintings. When denied open expression of
desires, the roundabout ways are the only refuge. As a paradigm, Helen tells
more about the uni que stand of female authors as opposed to male Romantics
of the age. She has to face ―her anxiety about her own artistry, together with
the duplicity that anxiety necessitates‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 82) which is kind of
a double -burden. Being a professional artist does not leave the female artist
invulnerable against the ―the social implications of her vocation‖ (Gilbert and
Gubar, 82).
So far as the opening pages of the Bronte sisters‘ novels are
concerned, the Bronte sisters made claims to presenting reali stic works and
proved it in their pen names with all implications of social limiting conventions
imposed on women writers. Analysing their novels‘ contents will be the task

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that will consume the rest of this study. Not only did Ioan Williams describe
―the experience of the Haworth sisters‖ as ―intense and limited‖ (Williams, 169)
but so did the great admirer of the Brontes, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell. Mrs. Gaskell
noted how: ―despite the spiritual sincerity of the sisters, at times‖, their ―desire
to appear mal e‖ labelled their works as ―technically false‖ (qtd. by Gilbert and
Gubar, 70). Gilbert and Gubar agree with Gaskell and cite The Professor ‘s male
narrator‘s ―curiously androgynous part‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 319). Charlotte
Bronte presents a narrator whose ‗properly‘ masculine ―yearnings toward
women‖ contrast ―his judgements of women – his disgust, for instance, with the
stereotypical doll woman‖ which makes him into ―an unusual male‖ (Gilbert and
Gubar, 319). Moreover, Gilbert and Gubar think that Charlot te Bronte ―has
taken great pains to establish Grimsworth as a sober, idealistic young man‖
(321) thus unworthy of the epithet ‗a copy from life. ‘ This is why the ―narrator
and the author [of The Professor ] are more carefully distinguished from each
other i n The Professor than in any of [Charlotte] Bronte‘s other mature novel s‖
(Gilbert and Gubar, 315).
It is good to not e that this contradiction is more debated in Charlotte
Bronte than in Anne and Emily. Charlotte Bronte admits the restrictions imposed
upon women writers yet denies her suffering from them, or at least their
hindering influence on her. At the same time, she denies the masculine gender
of the pen name with which she signed her works and insists on its general
neutrality. She can debate th e gend er of the name, but fails to offer an
explanation why she, if she is such a daring woman, dares not write under her
original name .

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Chapter Two
Reality
It is ‗reality‘ that could be said to be a point of convergence in
romantic and realistic theoretical l iterature. However, a thoughtful, attentive -to-
details reading would reveal it is the debatable point where Realism and
Romanticism go astray. Both make claims to represent those aspects of reality
which concern the layman; their reader. The aspects includ e the social, the
material, and the psychological. It is precisely the depiction of these realities
that stands behind the confusion of romantic/realistic categorisation of a given
work. For one example, the 1848 – Pre- Raphaelite theory which is usually
stopped at in tracing the development of Romantic theory is seen by Henry A.
Beers, in his History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century , as
―sternly realistic‖ and more so because it calls ―not to copy from the antique,
but from nature‖ (Beers, 2 87) which is to be later associated more with
Romanticism than with Realism. It is a confusion created by the word ‗nature‘
which is used in some texts as another word for ‗reality‘. For an illustrative
example of this confusion in categorizing, Q. D. Leav is and Arnold Kettle classify
Wuthering Heights as a ―sociological novel‖ whilst Eliot Gose finds in it ―a sort
of expanded fairytale‖ (qtd. by Gilbert and Gubar, 258). What is more, Gilbert
and Gubar, indeed, sense that ―strangely there is truth in all th ese apparently
conflicting notions‖ (ibid). Charlotte Bronte in her Preface to the new edition of
Wuthering Height , under the title ―Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell,‖
discerns no ‗conflicting notions‘ at all, however. She is as acquainted with the

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West Riding region and its people as is the Wuthering Heights ‘ authoress. The
novel is simply a final product ―hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out
of homely materials ‖ (Preface, 7 ). In other words, Leavis and Kettle seem to be
describing th e material; Gose the materials‘ processing.
The confusion in Realism originates, according to Damian Grant,
from ―posing a reality to which a realistic representation shall correspond‖
(Realism , Grant, 73). Rather than ―hewn‖, the material need be re – presented
with the minimum degree of processing and artificiality. Grant proposes
avoiding ―the notion of correspondence, and regarding the coherence and
reality of the work itself as the true criterion of realism‖ (Grant, 73).
―[O]bservation/ experiment‖ must supersede ―intuition/ imagination‖ (Grant,
42) for the ―stuff of experience is nothing except as led into the arena of
significance by a responsive consciousness; the goings -on of life itself are
uninteresting, a ‗dull waste‘, unless redeemed by a mind al ert to its
reverberations‖ (Grant, 53). To define the reverberations clearly is the first step
into appreciating the ‗reality‘ presented in a literary work. On the other hand,
John Laird, in A Study in Realism , believes that ―reality is a difficult thing t o get
away from‖ (Laird, 1). According to this understanding, any artist, no matter
which -ism‘s creeds they embrace or adopt, must draw their materials from a
reality of some sort and the end product is necessarily realistic in one sense or
another .
In he r ―Introduction‖ to A Passenger to Frankfurt (published 1970),
Agatha Christie offers another unique theory addressing two question s
concerning literary composition. The first question is ―Where do you [the

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author] get your ideas from?‖ (Christie, 11). The second: ―I suppose you take
most of your characters from real life?‖ (Christie, 12). She mocks, in apparent
agreement with Laird, ―The universal opinion … [that] there is a magic source
of ideas which authors have discovered how to tap‖ (Christie, 11). Bu t she
mocks and refutes that opinion to strike us with her claim that her ideas and
her characters are her head‘s products (Christie, 12). She allows their ‗real‘
quality to result ―only because [she has] made them become real‖ (ibid). She
allows only that the setting is ―outside [her creative head] … waiting … in
existence already. You don‘t invent that –it‘s there –it‘s real‖ (ibid).
Personally, I believe a combination of Laird‘s theory and Christie‘s
would be a more balanced understanding than either tak en as sole or in
isolation.
But what is the point behind Realism‘s represented reality with its
dull minutes and Romantism‘s created, mostly lavishly coloured one? I find
Beers‘ addressing this point convincing. He holds: ―Realism sets itself against
that desire of escape from actual conditions into an ideal world, which is a note
of the romantic spirit in general‖ (Beers, 396). As such, realists delineate
imperfections and blemishes as they are: repellent, hindering, limiting, mocked,
etc. Which is why Rea lism comes to be associated, though ‗unfairly‘, with
pessimism as seen in Charles Dickens and more so in Thomas Hardy.
Romantics propose an alternative reality of limiting, harsh conditions
which heroes overcome and where opportunities of love, finance, an d work are
open to them. Gilbert and Gubar trace this romantic tendency in Charlotte
Bronte for whom "Happy endings … will not be quite so easily arranged in this

22
fallen world, for history replaces mere romance in a world of stony facts‖
(Gilbert and Gub ar, 398). In this light, Gilbert and Gubar locate in Charlotte
Bronte‘s Villette ―the last of a series of the writer‘s fictional attempts to come to
terms with her own loveless existence‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 400). The ―loveless
existence‖ alludes to Charlo tte Bronte‘s forced separation from her lover M.
Héger, the schoolteacher she met during her stay in Brussels. The lovers were
forced into separation by M. Héger‘s wife. Charloote‘s bitterness intensifies and
grew unmatched when Héger put an end to their letters correspondence. In
analogy, this accounts for Agnes Grey‘s happy union with Weston in Anne
Bronte‘s Agnes Grey . Anne Bronte‘s loss of William Weightman (he worked as a
curate with her father in the parish) who died of cholera in 1842 is retrieved i n
the person of Edward Weston who returns Agnes‘ affections. The escape of
life‘s stony facts is extreme in Emily Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights (though the
origin behind her intensity of rejecting this world remains obscure). Emily
Bronte arranges the union o f Catherine and Heathcliff in the other world.
Within this line of Romantic escape argument, Hazlitt argues ―one
impulse to art is the need to compensate for a physical defect‖ and cites how
―Byron‘s ‗misshapen feet‘ contributed to his genius; they ‗made h im write verses
in revenge‘‖ (qtd. by Abrams, 142). Gilbert and Gubar survey a peculiarly
feminine defect: eye troubles. Eye troubles, they note ―seem to abound in the
lives and works of literary women‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 58). Eye troubles made
their appe arance in Charlotte Bronte‘s novels, in particular. Not surprisingly,
Charlotte herself had eye problems. Moreover, Charlotte Bronte had other
disturbing defect around which all her novels are centred: lack of dazzling

23
beauty, or plain physicality. In Villette, Polly, the Paragon of romance is
carefully characterized as ―delicate dame,‖ ―a fairy thing,‖ a ―little sprite,‖ ―a
lamb‖ (Bronte, 247, 239, 244, 252). The a djective s (the outward) are attractive.
But attached to empty, essence -less, even soul -less nouns as ―thing‖
(representing inner self and reality ). That is why Lucy Snowe upon finding
herself ―[e]xcluded from romance,‖ she, pretentiously though, ―discovers that
romantic love is itself no p anacea‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 428 ).
Realists‘ representation of harsh reality as it is and the heroes‘
attempts to cope with it seems Darwinistic. People come to accept their being
part of nature and its laws of evolution. Humanity is no longer dominating
nature. In the ‗survival of the fittest‘ sense, heroism is n ot achieved in a
metaphorical fashion of poetic justice where good triumphs over evil. Rather it
is pragmatic whereby the more adapting the person, the more chances they get
of getting ahead. The world is not created for humans to dominate . Rather
humans a re parts of the world and must fit in it.
Whether for representation or compensation, the reality that fiction
writers depict draws primarily upon three resources: Social, Material (or,
physical) and/or Psychological.
2.1 Social Reality
More than material and psychological realities, social reality is what
authors boast of achieving when talking of real life and ordinary life. Indeed,
Paul Cobley , in his Narrative , grants Realism a special place among the other –
isms for its representation of ―individual re lationships within a recognizable
social structure‖ and of ―the crisis of everyday existence‖ (Cobley, 90). But this

24
would qualify most novels as realistic. What is a story, after all, if not involving
characters whose interaction makes up the plot and who se interaction, as well,
entails the existence of an organising net of relationships to render actions,
reactions and interactions meaningful? Needless to say that these characters
and action -verbs need occur within the conditions of a certain setting. To take
one illustrative example, Charlotte Bronte‘s The Professor can be analysed into
a net of relationships. It commences by depicting familial relations between
William and his brother Edward; William and Edward and their mercantile
paternal and aristocra tic maternal uncles. Later, it is William and his friend Mr.
Hunsden, William and his employees, M. Pelet and Mdle Zoraide, William and
Frances. The critics who see in Wuthering Heights a realistically sociological
novel support their argument by the quant itative distribution that allocates half
of the novel‘s bulk to a concern ―with the larger, social consequences of
Catherine‘s fall‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 287).
On the contrary, critics argue that romantic ‗reality‘, if the word
‗reality‘ is ever allowed in this context, is at best manipulated. At worst,
distorted. F. L. Lucas, in his The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal , defines
Romanticism as a literary protestation and more specifically a rebellion against
a ―sense of reality‖ and/or a ―sense of soc iety‖ (Lucas, 55). Aidan Day , in a
fashion approximating Hazlitt‘s argument, identifies Romanticism with
―politically conservative, sometimes reactionary tendency of thought and
attitude‖ (Day, 182) and he characterises this conservatism as ―a response of
introverted gloom and despair. Gloom at the loss of social hope, no doubt, but
also a despairing loss of confidence in those inner resources of the self which

25
were supposed to sustain the individual who has lost social hope‖ (Day, 176).
Day locates Charlot te Bronte‘s rebellious reactions to begin with religion and its
teachings, then society and its ―restricting and repressive moral codes and
institutions … [like] marriage‖ (Day, 23). Charlotte Bronte attacks and mocks
Romanism and the Catholic Church (sp ecifically in the course of The Professor
and Villette ), which is only part of her general attitude of ―‗anti -Christian‘ refusal
to accept the forms, customs, and standards of society‖ (Gilbert and Gubar,
338). In Jane Eyre , the target of her fury is ‗piou s‘ Mr. Brocklehurst who runs
and supervises Lowood school. Mr. Brocklehurst preaches to the school girls:
―Humility‖ (Bronte, 33). Mr. Brocklehurst quotes the proof to his success in
humbling his pupils from the mouth of his daughter, Augusta, who is visit ing
the school with her mother. Augusta exclaims ―how quiet and plain all the girls
at Lowood look … they are almost like poor people's children! … they looked at
my dress and mama's , as if they had never seen a silk gown before‖ (ibid, my
emphasis). I n Shirley , Charlotte Bronte specifically challenges what is
comprehensively phrased by Gilbert and Gubar as ‖the patriarchal Miltonic
cosmology‖ dominating the society and responsible for women‘s degradation
and misery (Gilbert and Gubar, 193). In Shirley‘ s early life, she espoused this
myth that enhances and justifies female submission as expressed in her old
devoir, ‗La Premiere Femme Savante,‘ which is revealingly unfolded in the
chapter entitled ―Old Copy Books‖ (Bronte, 301). Although her First Woman o f
―La Premiere‖ is ―Of all things, herself seemed to herself the centre,‖ that
centre is ―a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul‖ (303). The grown -up
Shirley, however, mocks the housewifely Eve of John Milton (what came to be

26
known as the angel of the house) and alludes to the passage in Book 5 in
Paradise Lost when Eve acts like a servant waiting on Adam and his companion.
Instead, she flesh es out a new race of Eves; strong as Titans, and rebellious as
Prometheus (Gilbert and Gubar, 194). Jane E yre is the true Titan Eve in flesh
and blood. Unlike Miss Temple‘s ―ladylike repression‖ or Helen Burns‘ ―saintly
renunciation‖, Jane‘s, Gilbert and Gubar notes, is the ―Promethean way of fiery
rebellion‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 347).
In The Tenant , Anne Bront e presents a Titan Eve. Anne Bronte‘s
Helen is not a romantic Promethean one , nevertheless . She is a realistic rebel
aware of the restrictions of her surroundings‘ laws and codes and acts
accordingly. She follows Christian doctrines with submission and acc eptance.
She fled from her husband‘s house but feared the consequences it entails.
Through the major part of the novel, she is anxious to keep her real identity in
darkness from her neighbours and signs all her paintings with false initials to
conceal it f rom her customers. Apart from her leaving her husband, Helen‘s
career as an artist is enough to bring her name to infamy. She never dares
trespass the social codes concerning her profession. Likewise, in her depiction
of ―domestic hypocrisy‖ in Agnes Grey , Anne Bronte shows ―piety‖ and casts ―a
cool eye for domestic hypocrisy‖ (Bentley, 36). She gives, with a sense of
shame, symptomatic glimpses of disease with codes (social and religious) , but
keeps function ing within them.
Out of the various dominant soci al institutions, marriage seems the
preferable t arget where all social ills seem to be bred, fostered, and to
proliferate to poison other institutions. Frances Henri, in The Professor ,

27
contends that only ―death would certainly screen [her] both from bad la ws and
their consequences‖ ( Charlotte Bronte, 146). Edward Crimsworth‘s marriage
embodies those ―bad laws‖. Edward, who ―owned no God but Mammon‖ ( 12),
makes a measurable success in accumulating wealth and establishes a status as
a prosperous tradesman but his ‗gold -thirst‘ is never quenched. In his
‗mammonic‘ horizon, marriage offers a good sustainable investment considering
the laws then. Through marriage, Edward put his hands on the mill of his wife.
Marriage for that wealthy wife , on the other hand, is a social need. Otherwise,
she will be deemed to live as an old maid whose ―life must doubtless be void
and vapid –her heart strained and empty‖ ( 147). In Shirley , old maids are
seriously depicted as a segregated race or class where the patriarchal
legitimi ses the paternal. At one occasion in Shirley , Caroline pities, literally, the
―very unhappy race‖ (111). In another, she makes the parallel between old
maids and ―the houseless and unemployed poor‖ who ―should not ask for a
place and an occupation in the w orld: the demand disturbs the happy and rich:
it disturbs parents‖ (243).
Anne Bronte combines the two ideas in Agnes Grey in the person of
Rosalie. Rosalie confides to Agnes: ―if I could be always young, I would be
always single‖ but since this is impossi ble she decides when ―on the verge of
being called an old maid‖ and to ―escape the infamy‖ of being called an old
maid ―by marrying‖ but all be after she ―made ten thousand conquests‖ (48).
Of ―loss of social hope‖ and ―loss of inner resources‖, what more can
be said than William‘s discovery, upon taking the offered position in Edward‘s
counting -house, that in place of the romance of ―fraternal tenderness‖ ( The

28
Professor , 5), which, for Edward, is mere ―humbug!‖ (ibid, 10), there are only
feelings of ―antip athy‖ (ibid, 16). Kinship as an unshaken blood -bond is yet
another fallen romance. William‘s need for education was guaranteed by his
maternal uncle, but through blackmail. Chances happened that Hon. John
Seacombe , William‘s uncle, seeks to win the represe ntation of a suddenly
vacant borough. William‘s paternal uncle (an astute merc hant) seizes this
chance to ‗blackmail‘ Seacombe to take his part in providing for his nephews
education fees. Otherwise, he is to bring Seacombe‘s name to the infamy of
merciles sness, thus demolishing Mr. Seacombe‘s chances of winning elections
(4).
Charlotte Bronte‘s novels offer a continental societal picture, besides.
Of Brussels society, in The Professor , readers get to know that ―the Belgian old
women permit themselves a lic ence of manners, speech, and aspect, such as
[English] venerable granddames would recoil from as absolutely disreputable‖
(40). As a miniature of Brussels community, ―backbiting and table bearing were
universal‖ among Zoraide‘s students (55). Similarly, L ucy, in Villette (Villette
being the name Charlotte Bronte gives to Brussels here), reports the pensionnat
to be ―a strange house, where no corner was sacred from intrusion, where not
a tear could be shed, nor a thought pondered, but a spy was at hand to n ote
and to divine‖ (200). Of Belgians‘ dishonesty, Lucy recounts with bitterness how
she paid ―the price of experience‖ when during her vessel journey, she ―had
given crowns where I should have given shillings‖ thrice in one afternoon (45).
So far, the soc ial scenes seem to secure for Charlotte Bronte a place among
realists.

29
Contrary to the immorality of the Belgians (later , other Continentals
too), Lucy boasts that outlanders know that ―only English girls … can thus be
trusted to travel alone, and deep i s their wonder at the daring confidence of
English parents and guardians‖ (47). When among the dishonest citizens of
Brussels, she records how fortunate she is to find an English man (luckily!) who
helped her in knowing the destination of her missing trun k, with emphasis
given to his ‗Englishness‘ and ―Fatherland accent‖ (55). Such instances work as
yardsticks whereby Charlotte Bronte‘s Realism is brought into question. She
directs the social scene in a peculiarly romantic fashion. It is proper here to
refer to Aidan Day‘s Romanticism , specifically the part where he discusses the
connection between Romanticism and Imperialism (Day, 138). Imperialism, in
one sense of Day‘s argument, I hold, is forcefully present in Charlotte Bronte‘s
novels. Not only in the naive sense of alluding to M. Paul Emanuel‘s sailing to
the West Indies to run the family‘s plantation ( The Professor , 386). The English
intellectual, moral, and behavioural superiority over other nations (Brussels
being an icon of Belgium, the French, the Dutch, later all other continentals,) is
one major theme (considering the space devoted to the praise of England and
the English) in The Professor and Villette , have a place in Jane Eyre . William, in
The Professor , observes: ―British girls … envied and ridiculed by their
continental associates‖ but the ‗royal‘ English girls keep a stiff upper lip and
―warded off insult with austere civility … met hate with mute disdain …
eschewed company -speaking, and in the midst of number seemed to dwell
isolated‖ (58). Belgians (―the youth of Brabant‖) rank low mentally as well as
intellectually. From his ‗experience‘ with ―the on goings of Belgian schools …

30
[and] system‖, William records freely that their ―intellectual faculties were
generally weak … animal pr opensities strong … singularly stubborn, heavy as
lead and, like lead most difficult to move…. short memories, dense intelligence,
feeble reflective powers … not brave singly … relentless acting EN MSSE‖ (37).
The English intelligence is put also in cont rast to the dullness of the Dutch.
From his brief, in -passing acquaintance (two meetings) with M. Vandenhuten,
William does not hesitate to generalise ―The Dutchman …. slow, cool, of rather
dense intelligence, though sound and accurate judgement; the Engli shman far
more nervous, active, quicker both to plan and to practice, to conceive and to
realize‖ (120). A good word of benevolence in M. Vandenhuten‘s favour is
allowed, but limited to his generous person, as a particular case (if not
exceptional and uniq ue.) In this sole case, William allowed it that ―our
characters dovetailed‖ though obviates: ―but my mind having more fire and
action than his, instinctively assumed and kept the predominance‖ (ibid).
In Jane Eyre , the English countryside and its dwellers are elevated.
The ―British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self -respecting
of any in Europe‖ (422). Through her ‗governess‘ experience, Jane has ―seen
paysannes [French word for peasantry] and Bauerin nen [German word for
peasantry]‖ but notes that ―the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse,
and besotted, compared with my Morton girls‖ (ibid). Needless to say that her
‗experience‘ with the French and the German, if ‗experience‘ it is, does not
qualify her to judge Europe.
Be it termed Imperialism, Nationalism, Patriotism or bigotry, it is
inescapable that eventually it exposes its beholder to inconsistency or

31
discrepancy. The first slippage in Charlotte Bronte‘s case is embodied in the
person of Adele, Rochester‘s daughter. Not until ― a sound English education
corrected in a great measure her French defects‖ that Jane ―found in her a
pleasing and obliging companion: docile, good -tempered, and well -principled‖
(Bronte, 422). So did Ginerva, in Villette , find refuge, from abhorrent ―inten sely
stupid and vulgar‖ natives of Villette, in ―some nice English families‖ who make
it ―bearable to live there among stupids‖ (Bronte, 49). The first paradox is how
English education returned fruitful results in ‗French‘ Adele and was futile in
‗English‘ Miss Ingram and the ‗English‘ ladies in Thornfield ball -room. Either the
French are more open to morality when duly shown its course and path; or that
the ―on goings‖ of English educational institutions and system are no better
than their continental coun terparts. Accepting either choice will leave the other
unsolved, however.
Ginerva as a paragon of continental education has only ―three things
she practised in earnest, viz. music, singing, and dancing; also embroidering
the fine cambric handkerchiefs‖ whe reas ―lessons in history, geography,
grammar, and arithmetic‖ are dismissed as ―mere trifles‖ ( Villett e, 77). Adele‘s
school room library shelves (the ‗English‘ library in the ‗English‘ Thornfield) were
furnished with: ―one bookcase left open containing ev erything that could be
needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature,
poetry, biography, travels, a few romances‖ ( Jane Eyre , 108), which perhaps
makes it no wonder why ―no great talents, no marked traits of character, no
peculiar development of feeling or taste‖ are traced in Adele who nurses only
‗feminine‘ traits like ―simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please‖ (114). In a

32
word, Adele is a being whose raw material is coquetry. It ―runs in her blood,
blends with her b rains, and seasons the marrow of her bones‖ (ibid). If it is
accepted that coquetry is brought with Adele from France, let it be tested
against the English female character and education to be verified or, otherwise,
refuted.
Ginerva ―lived her full life i n a ball -room; e lsewhere she drooped
dispirited ‖ (Villett e, 123). Moreover, Lucy reports ―foreigners, even such as are
ungraceful in domestic privacy, seem to possess the art of appearing graceful in
public‖ ( Villette , 183). So did ―rapture lit [Adele‘s] f ace as she unfolded‖ her
―little pink silk frock‖ ( Jane Eyre , 148). Of her first ball, readers know how
―Adele had been in a state of ecstasy all day … and it was not till Sophie
commenced the operation of dressing her that she sobered down‖ (ibid). Lik e
the Belgian vain ladies, so were the ladie s in Thorfield claded in dresses ―that
gleamed lustrous through the dusk‖ and conversed ―in a key of sweet subdued
vivacity‖ as they emerge from their rooms to join the party (180). They worship
appearances, care ful to ‗appear‘ graceful in public like other ‗vain‘ and ‗vulgar‘
Belgians.
Lucy‘s disgust with Ginerva and the pensionnat‘s students‘ manners
in the ball -room and Jane‘s distasteful reception of Adele‘s opera song which
parallels the ball -room with the ba ttle field; with ―pride … brightest jewels and
richest robes‖ ( Jane Eyre , 177) as armaments for ensnaring lovers, taking
revenge on ex -lovers, and elevating one‘s esteem by bringing others to shame,
is valid when applied to the English scene. It is worse in the English case where
the ladies employ the scanty ‗scientific‘, or bookish knowledge they were spoon –

33
fed as a social instrument of wicked abuse, or ―TRAILING‖ which ―might be
clever, but … decidedly not good -natured‖ (183). Blanch Ingram, for exam ple,
uses her absorbing of some botanic vocabulary ―with an air‖ with Mrs. Dent
whose only claims to the discourse is a professed love of ―flowers‖ with the sole
aim of ―playing on her [Mrs. Dent‘s] ignorance‖ (ibid).
Even Charlotte Bronte‘s criticism of Mdlle. Zoraide and Madame Beck
as insufficient models for girls under their supervision with their flattery and
hypocrisy in winning the parents‘ consent is doubtlessly true of some
educationists of England. One example is Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood whose
original exists in flesh and blood in The Clergy Daughter‘s School, which was
frequented by the Bronte sisters.
Social hypocrisy of the kind Lucy observes among the inhabitants of
Villette is not peculiarly ‗Villettian‘. When Madame Beck sends Lucy with a
basket to a lady, she emphasises Beck‘s orders to ―be sure to insist on seeing
Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket into her own hands, in order
that there may be no mistake, for she is rather a punctilious personage‖
(Bronte, 338). Charity in Villette is a showing -off tool. But what to make of two
types of charity among the English in Shirley . Caroline Helstone exposes the
hypocrisy behind the charitable works of ―a Lady Bountiful‖ as practiced by
Shirley, whose sole ―notion of charity is to giv e shillings and half -crowns in a
careless, free handed sort of way, which is liable to continual abuse‖ ( 166) and
gained her the respect of the whole village; and those of ―a Sister of Charity‖
practiced by Miss Ainley, with more forms among which are to ― watch by any

34
sick-bed… nurse the poorest‖ with ―one gentleman –one only –gave her his
friendship and perfect confidence: … Mr. Hall, the vicar of Nunnley‖ (115).
In Anne Bronte‘s novels, the very social themes are touched upon,
but with a significant d ifference in depiction. Anne Bronte depicts the fallen
English education within an English setting without comparing it with other
continental settings to brighten her fictitious world by contrasting it with a
much darker one. Anne Bronte finds no consolat ion for the English corrupt
education system in that continentals‘ is ‗worse. ‘ The English education system
prescribes ―French, German, music, singing, dancing, fancy -work, and a little of
drawing‖ ( Agnes Grey , 39). In fact, the little drawing is motivated not by
inclination among the English of fostering qualified artistic taste or artistic
ambitions. It is merely taught to the extent enough to ―produce the greatest
show with the smallest labour‖ for girls (ibid). In addition, these skills are to be
master ed before eighteen to qualify girls for ―the full blaze of the fashionable
world‖ or as the chapter‘s title indicate ―The ‗Coming Out‘‖ (44). Rosalie, in
Agnes Grey , embodies that system. During a continental tour with her husband,
Rosalie bought two paint ings, whose artist‘s name she forgot. All what she
knows is that they are ―fine Italian paintings of great value‖ and that they must
have about them some aspects of ―prodigious beauties‖; a piece of information
that she collects from ―hearsay: and many ele gant curiosities besides‖
(104/105). The English female character in Agnes Grey is marked by ―constant
indulgence and habitual scorn of reason‖, ―love of display‖, and ―showy
accomplishment‖ (39). As early as the nursery years, little Anne of the Murrays

35
brought her doll to Agnes ―and began to be very loquacious on the subject of
its fine clothes, its bed, its chest of drawers, and other appurtenances‖ (11).
Like Ginerva and Adele, Rosalie‘s ―days will be so long and dull
when… no parties‖ (77). To extend t he ball room/ battle field parallel, Rosalie
boasts how at one ball she has ―humbled Mr. Hatfield so charmingly‖ and
―made so Many conquests in that one night‖ (76, 47). Mastering this art of
―female vanity‖ which is ―the most essential attribute of [femal e] sex‖, she
believes she deserves the graceful badge of ―skilful flattery‖ (76, 40). The social
world and its values are fallen to the extent that flattery has a badge of
skilfulness, but love is ―beneath the dignity of a woman‖, ―perfect insult‖ and
one is ―a fool to fall in LOVE !‖ (71). Anne Bronte expands the evils of the ball –
room battlefield where proposals are advanced. Evil because of the falsity of
these proposals and subsequent marriages based on them. The ball room is a
vain theatre where ―gentl emen are most easily ensnared, and ladies most
enchanting‖ (83). Marriage and family, the very serious of things, are initiated
and advanced by ‗forces‘ of triviality and vanity. Rosalie‘s concept of marrying
Sir Thomas includes ―becoming mistress of Ashby park … bridal ceremony …
honeymoon … subsequent gaieties‖ (85). The first of these is urgent for her.
She tells Agnes ―the fact is, I MUST have Ashby Park, whosoever shares it with
me‖ (72).
Anne Bronte‘s social perspective is more comprehensive than
Charlotte‘s. Just as she depicts the English concept of a woman, she does that
of a man. Just as women learn to entertain, men learn to be entertained. Of
Huntingdon‘s friends, in The Tenant , we find one Walter Hargrave who will ―go

36
to a certain length in yout hful indulgences, not so much to gratify his own
tastes as to maintain his reputation as a man of fashion in the world, and a
respectable fellow among his own lawless companions‖ (Bronte, 208).
Huntingdon and his friends, Helen relates bitterly, were ―deli ghted to encourage
in all the embryo vices a little child can show, and to instruct in all the evil
habits he could acquire – in a word, to 'make a man of him'‖ (Bronte, 310).
Similarly, in Agnes Grey , Tom Murray is praised by his uncle, Mr. Robinson:
―Curse me, if ever I saw a nobler little scoundrel than that [i.e. Tom]. He‘s
beyond petticoat government already: by God! He defies mother, granny,
governess, and all!‖ (29). That very uncle encourages in Mary Ann ―her
tendency to affectation … talking about her pretty face, and filling her head
with all manner of conceited notions concerning her personal appearance‖ (27).
Anne Bronte echoes Mary Wollstonecraft‘s blaming the shallowness of girls on
the other sex‘s nurturing in them love of flattery; an argumen t that runs all
through her Vindication of the Rights of Women . But Anne Bronte gives the
mature female sex its share of blame. In Agnes Grey , when having guests in
Wellwood House, Mrs. Murray taught Tom to ―talk to them‖ and Mary Ann to
―be noticed by the m‖ (30). In The Tenant , Mrs. Markham, advises Gilbert: ―it's
your business to please yourself, and hers [your wife] to please you‖ (47).
Anne Bronte‘s insight reaches beyond the evils of the ball -room
proposals to the ills of subsequent marriages. Rosalie, ―in her princely home‖,
gets the title ―poor Lady Ashby‖ ( Agnes Grey , 112). When the charms of the
ball-room vanish, she sees Sir Thomas‘s ―betting -book … gaming -table …
opera -girls … his Lady This and Mrs. That … Bottles of wine … Glasses of

37
brandy and water too‖ ( Agnes Grey , 111). She finally sees the ―ugly beast‖ with
whom she shares the Park (48). Another being wretched by their marriage is
the baby Ashby in whom Rosalie can only see ―the most charming child in the
world‖ (104). When love is an insult, motherhood is out of question for the
queen flatterer. She tells Agnes in a letter she is not ―troubled with nursing it
[her baby] – I was determined I wouldn‘t be bothered with that‖ (ibid). Her
philosophy being: ―I can‘t devote myself entirely t o a child… it may die – which
is not at all improbable‖ (112). She ―can‘t centre all [her] hopes in a child: that
is only one degree better than devoting oneself to a dog‖ (ibid).
Anne Bronte‘s heroines are not much themselves romantically
idealised or ra ised above the codes of their society. Helen‘s aunt continually
instructs her that in love affairs she has to ―First study; then approve; then
love‖ ( The Tenant , 118). The inexperienced, unsophisticated Helen confes ses:
―I fear I have found it much easier to remember her advice than to profit by it;
– indeed, I have sometimes been led to question the soundness of her doctrines
on those subjects‖ (119). Only when mature, Helen appreciates the value of the
―doctrines‖ and pours them into Esther Hargrave‘s ear s (392).
Within the school room, Anne Bronte shows what Damian Grant
characterized as ―a mind alert to its reverberations‖ (Grant, 53). Though Jane
Eyre and Agnes Grey tell the story of governess es, what Anne Bronte‘s called
―the governess‘s yoke‖ ( Agnes G rey, 52), it is more graphic in Anne Bronte‘s
novel than in Charlotte Bronte‘s. The latter‘s traces more its heroine‘s conflicting
passions upon a passing remark from the ladies in the Thornfield ball -room.
Both express the confusing intermediate position they face between a servant

38
and an upper servant or a nurse. In the Murrays family carriage, Agnes‘s
seating position is symbolic of this intermediary. H er reserved ―position in the
carriage was, to be crushed into the corner farthest from the open window, and
with my back to the horses‖ (42), the ―corner in the family pew‖ which ―Miss
Murray, under some trivial pretext, chose to take‖ (87). In her second position,
Agnes is ―honoured … with a visit‖ from Mrs. Murray in the manner Agnes‘s
mother ―might ste p into the kitchen to see a new servant -girl‖ (37). Agnes soon
finds ―the name of governess … was a mere mockery as applied to me‖ (16).
Whereas Jane is seen humiliated intentionally by the partying ladies, Agnes is a
―vacancy‖ in the eyes of those respect able circles (64).
Agnes is deprived of will over all details of her classes‘ management,
pastime employment, and her personal life outside the walls of the Murrays‘
house. Her employers‘ having ―no notion of going with [her]: [she] must go
with them‖ (14) . ―Manners of doing the lessons ‖, ―hours of study‖, ― meals ,‖ and
―divisions and arrangements of the day‖ are scheduled by the shifting
convenience of her employers (42). Their caprices are compelling just as ―their
fancy‖ determines how she ―must run, walk , or stand‖ (14). Thus ―seldom could
[she] look upon an hour as entirely [her] own‖ (61). Nor could she claim free
days. During her position at the Murrays‘, since being with friends lately, Agnes
should ―not care for a longer stay‖ of a whole fortnight Ch ristmas holiday (21).
While at the Bloomfields‘, Agnes ―positively must put off [her] holidays till
[Rosalie‘s ball] is over‖ (44). When taking a leave over the news of her father‘s
death , she is blamed for her ―agitation about the matter … We must all d ie
some time‖ (96).

39
What counts among the governess‘s responsibilities is no less
confusing. When Mrs. Bloomfields worries her little daughter ―might acquire bad
habits from the nurse‖, Agnes is ―to overlook her washing and dressing, and
take charge of he r clothes‖ (11) and ―[f]inishing stitches to a frock for Mary
Ann‘s doll‖ (25). Mr. Bloomfields ―REQUEST that in future you [Agnes] will keep
them [her pupils] DECENT at least!‖ (15). With the Murrays, Matilda‘s, being
―driven to seek amusement in the comp anionship of dogs, and horses, and
grooms ‖ is blamed on Agnes‘s failure ―to amuse Miss Matilda … a little more‖ ;
Miss Murray‘s, ―wandering in the fields with a book in her hand‖ on Agnes‘s not
being ―a little more cheerful and conversable with Miss Murr ay‖; and
surprisingly, Mrs. Murray finds it inconsiderate on Agnes‘s part not to have
―half a mother‘s watchfulness – half a mother‘s anxious care‖ (69). In addition,
Agnes has the task of instruction which by itself is ―so arduous for the body as
the min d‖ (17).
A governess‘s job is to always ―try to exert herself a LITTLE more‖
(93) with that little including anything the whims of employers choose. The
―LITTLE‖ could be ―to study and strive to amuse and oblige, instruct, refine,
and polish, with the lea st possible exertion on their part, and no exercise of
authority on mine. With regard to the two boys, it was much the same; only,
instead of accomplishments, I was to get the greatest possible quantity of Latin
grammar and Valpy‘s Delectus into their head s – in order to fit them to school‖
(38)
A wide range of responsibilities and a limited, when any, resources of
punishing and rewarding are at her disposal. When her pupils misbehave, both

40
of the two sole responses of punishment and ignorance are condemned . When
giving the deed a blind eye and a deaf ear, she ―was conniving at their
disorderly conduct‖; when ―exalting [her] voice to enforce order, [she] was
using undue violence, and setting the girls a bad example by such ungentleness
of tone and language‖ (25). To sum up, ―to submit and oblige was the
governess‘s part, to consult their own pleasure was that of the pupils‖ (64).
Getting back to the connection between Romanticism and
Imperialsim, as apparent in Charlotte Bronte‘s works, and the entailed
discrepancy, discrepancy peeps whenever the English question is invoked. In
The Professor , the England Hunsden sees is a ―little corrupt, venal, lord -and-
king-cursed nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in –-shire), and helpless
pauperism; rotten with abu ses, worm -eaten with prejudices!‖ (135). Instead of
England the Paradise or the Romantic Canaan land of the Empire propaganda,
Hunsden reminds Frances of the earthly England of the starving English, the
slums, and the poverty. In place of ―the footprints o f our august aristocracy‖ ,
he invites her to ―see how they walk in blood, crushing hearts as they go‖
(ibid). She need s not search for these scenes long. At any of the ―English
cottage doors‖, she can see with bare eyes ―Famine‖, ―Disease‖, ―Infamy‖, and
―Ignorance‖, Hunsden directs her (ibid). However, Hunsden is not drawn
favourably in the novel. So are his views, though restoring some reality, are
strongly opposed by ‗sensible‘ Frances and mocked by ‗wise‘ William.
In Jane Eyre , readers get contradictory accounts of the English
atmosphere; a supposedly factual and stable aspect. The morning Adele
reached England, she saw ―a great city – a huge city, with very dark houses

41
and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town [in France she] came from‖
(183). In Rochester‘s perspective, he is taking ―the poor thing [i.e. Adele] out of
the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the
wholesome soil of an English country garden‖ (154). Carefully the former
account uttered by childi sh Adele, the latter by mature, sophisticated Rochester.
That c hildish Adele‘s impressions are similar to Hunsden‘s ideas underestimates
the latter‘s further still.
Charlotte Bronte‘s enthusiastic patriotism cooled down in Shirley to
be adopted again in Villette. In Shirley , while discussing the ‗Order in Council‘
and the unplanned or systemised implementing of machinery, Charlotte Bronte
seems to see what lies behind outward progress. She can depict ―Ruin‖ brought
by machinery ―greatly reducing the number of hands necessary to be employed
… thousands out of work … bad harvest supervened … The throes of a sort of
moral earthquake were felt‖ (19). In Shirley , there is an awareness of the
problems inherent in industrialism. There are labour disputes and economic
depression.
The narrative voice in Shirley adopts the stand that brings the ‗great
nation‘s heroes‘ into inspection to verify or nullify their claims to heroism. In
Shirley , the ‗unpatriotic‘ views are those of Mr. Moore, the hero, while the
patriotic stand is reserved for cold -hearted Helstone. Parallel to the shift in
Charlotte Bronte‘s themes, are Caroline‘s shifting literary interests: Caroline lost
interest in the Classics which appealed to romantics because of their
remoteness and antiquity. The Classics‘ ―faded flowers‖, from which ―Caroline
had in her childhood extracted the honey‖ are ―tasteless to her now‖ (243). On

42
a symbolic level, Charlotte Bronte no longer sees the childish concept of
―ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing
vices‖ (19). Rather it is the grown -ups‘ concept that is ―synonymous with
degradation‖ (ibid).
Helstone‘s certainty of England‘s victory and of God‘s support of the
right, not the powerful is analogous to the Israelites and the Egypt ians.
Egyptians ―were armed, horsed, and charioted‖ ( Shirley , 24). The Israelites
―were a poor, overthrown band of bondsmen. Tyrants had oppressed them
through four hundred years … were afoot. Few of them, it is likely, had better
weapons than their shep herds‘ crooks or their masons‘ building -tools‖ (ibid).
But they win because ―the God of battles … The right hand of the Lord …
dashed in pieces the enemy!‖ (ibid). Moore agrees with the validity of the
historical account Helstone is alluding to, but se es a distorted or deliberately
twisted analogy. In Moore‘s view ―France is Israel, and Napoleon is Moses.
Europe, with her old overgorged empires and rotten dynasties, is corrupt Egypt;
gallant France is the Twelve Tribes‖ (25).
Helstone stubbornly advocat es England‘s defeat to the unfair chance
it got ―on the march of civilisation as France did‖ ( 25). Moore reminds him that
the chance was deliberately wasted by their clinging to backward ideologies of
―the divine right of kings … the duty of non -resisten ce, and the sanity of war‖
(ibid). Thus England turned, the narrator adopts Moore‘s view: ―a land that was
king-ridden, priest -ridden, peer -ridden; where a lunatic was the nominal
monarch, an unprincipled debauched the real ruler‖ (34). The narrator joins
with Moore and sees ―the after -taste of the battle, death and pain replacing

43
excitement and exertion … the blackness the bright fire leaves when its blaze is
sunk, its warmth failed, and its glow faded‖ (216).
A contradiction shared by Anne and Charlotte Bronte is their
heroines‘ being well -educated especially in literary works and hav ing ambitions
of employing their skills and knowledge in an occupation outside the household
despite the above confirmed ‗stony‘ facts of life of Victorian society. With
Charlotte Bronte, however, things get exaggerated to market the model she is
presenting. So the ‗timid‘ Caroline, does not aspire for the kind of nurturing
occupations of nursing and teaching which though scorned and mocked, are no
brow-raisers. Instead, she applies for Moore to ―be apprenticed to yo ur trade –
the cloth trade … [she] would do the counting -house work, keep the books …
write the letters‖ (44).
From Emily Bronte‘s novel not much of the Victorian social life is
extracted. The leading role of w ealth and social class and status in Catherine
and Heathcliff‘s impossible earthly union could be one of them. Accordingly,
Bentley contextualises Wuthering Heights as belonging ―to eighteenth century
… the century of horse transport, rough tracks, remot e houses, character
unsoftened by urban contacts … in essence Emily‘s tale is timeless: a tale of
elemental, universal passions, love scorned turning into a fury of revenge and
hate‖ (Bentley, 33). So he set s Anne and Charlotte Bronte‘s novels to ―belong
essentially to the nineteenth century … the century of governesses and
machines and trains‖ (Bentley, 33).

44
2.2: Material Reality
The realistic novel, Ioan Williams notes , in his The Realist Novel in
England , came as a development of the lesson which the nov elist learns from
Scott (whom Beers locates in ―the middle point and the culmination of the
English romanticism‖ (Beers, 1) ) that ―the conditions of life are harsh …
sublimity, heroism and romance are attained only at the cost of peace of mind
or life itse lf‖ (Williams, 30). Instead, Scott suggests that ―the qualities which
make life endurable or desirable for the individual are essentially domestic and
mundane‖ (ibid). In other words, ―circumstances are to be used, but not
dominated‖ (Williams, 176). This way ―the heroic and sublime ideal is
humanized within the realist novel‖ (ibid). The episode of Julia‘s curls in Jane
Eyre could be read symbolically to materialise Williams‘ point. Miss Temple sees
no vanity in the curls for ―Julia's hair curls naturally‖ while Mr. Brocklehurst, like
the romantic rebels, mocks the very idea of "Naturally!‖ because ―we are not to
conform to nature‖ (65). Brocklehurst even protests against nature‘s
―abundance‖ since it violates his whim of hair being ―arranged closely,
mode stly, plainly‖ (ibid).
That ―man was a spiritual and social being‖ lies at the heart of
Carlyle‘s theory, which constitutes an influential part of realist theory as a whole
(Williams, 96). Moreover, what Carlyle gives priority to, in literary
representatio n and rendering of life , were ―incidents, characters and
experiences, which shared the quality of mundane reality to the fullest degree,
and which could yet be shown as significant‖ (Williams, 109). In place of
romantic exotic settings, the realist writer seeks to stage a prosaic setting. No

45
more fairy, distant lands. Instead, there are cities, villages, estates and schools,
etc. To seek the material reality of a work is to search for these elements of
physical and environmental facts of a given spatial/tem poral setting. Unlike the
romantic descriptions of the uncommon to attain effect, suspense and the
creation of atmosphere, the realist sticks with describing the typical for
verisimilitude and the illusion of reality. But material facts are to be represent ed
―visually … to be concrete … to excite the mind of the reader to appreciate
their significance‖ (Williams, 109). The visual is, indeed, ―the strongest
element‖ recurring in Car lyle theory (Williams, 108). He grounds his convictions
on the fact that ―solid, particular, facts of man‘s physical nature and
environment are the raw mate rial in which the spirit moves‖ consequently, ―the
artist who wishes to represent truth must start from this element, showing it
honestly – often stunted and limited‖ (Willi ams, 108). That very last assertion
necessarily entails the emphasis on the biographical and historical elements in
assessing a work‘s realistic quality. An example of such biographical approach is
Johnson‘s Lives which extracts characterological facts der ived from textual
testimonies, and conversely, put s the biographical knowledge in use to cast
light and demystify the text (Abrams, 232). Abrams sees the work done by
Carlyle in the same light he sees Johnsons‘ (Abrams, 248). This approach views
the litera ry work as ―disguised projection of its author‖, the author as the
―visibly invisible‖ (Abrams, 241) and the critic as ―the detective reader‖
(Abrams, 234).
The geography, topography, and the sociological demographic facts
of the Bronte s‘ novels are comple tely autobiographical. The argument, in

46
Shirley‘s case, is also valid with regard to addressing the large political and
economic questions. Bentley praises Shirley for factual account of the
―geography, industrial history and people of the West Riding of Y orkshire‖
(Bentley, 11). More praise is due for its ―realistic representation‖ that ―no
meticulous historical detail of 1812 overweighs the story … true of West Riding
millowners and foremen to -day as they were a century ago‖ (Bentley, 11). The
West Ridin g‘s industrial history he refers to is the Luddites‘ attacks on new
machinery, its designers and inventors, and its owners and places of storage.
In fact, be it not for these facts, some curious neighbour s contemporary
readers of the Brontes would have mi ssed the first of clues as to locating the
sister authoresses. It is this particular rebellion and fury of the frame -breaking
workers which qualifies Shirley as one of the best four ―well -known examples‖,
according to the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, of the soc ial novel genre out of which
the realist novel developed.
Critics‘ remarks concerning the exaggerated rusticity of Emily
Bronte‘s Wuthering H eights , which is ―rustic all through … Moorish … wild …
knotty as a root of heath‖ are admitted by Charlotte Bronte, in her Preface to
the new edition of Wuthering Heights , but only because Charlotte herself could
―feel the [rustic] quality‖ (Preface, 5). Emily, Charlotte goes on to remind the
former‘s readers, is ―a native and nursling of the moors … home -bred country
girl‖ (ibid). Emily Bronte experienced the scenery as one of its native ―wild
birds‖ and ―heather‖ (ibid). That is to say, the moors were more than ―a
spectacle‖ for Emily Bronte (ibid). Charlotte Bronte thus converts the charges
into praise for E mily‘s achievement of realistic representation of the ‗rustic‘

47
moors as they and ―all‖ they should be; ―original‖ and ―truthful‖ (ibid). Thanks
to this precious biographical illumination, the ‗rustic‘ wildness of Wuthering
Heights turns out to be the very realistic part of Emily Bronte‘s Romance.
In that same Preface, Charlotte Bronte hits on Naturalism which is
connected with Realism and particularly the material reality. Naturalists
concentrate on the shaping power of environment (under the influence of
Darwinism, the force of heredity) on people‘s psyche, actions, and personality.
Charlotte Bronte points out the environment‘s limiting effect on Emily Bronte‘s
experiences and perspectives. Had Emily‘s, Charlotte affirms, ―lot been cast in a
town, her writi ngs … would have possessed another character. Even had
chance or taste led her to choose a similar subject, she would have treated it
otherwise‖ (Preface, 5). Likewise, Gilbert and Gubar see in Charlotte Bronte‘s
fictions and fictitious characters what C harlotte Bronte see s in her sister‘s
Wuthering Heights . Gilbert and Gubar note that ―when Rose Yorke in Shirley
describes Caroline Helstone as living the life of a toad enclosed in a block of
marble, Charlotte Bronte is speaking through her about her own d eprived and
constricted life, and its real conditions‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 87). That reading
could be solidified through evidence from another novel by Charlotte Bronte. In
Jane Eyre , Bessie and Abbot, the Reed‘s servants, refer to Jane as ―a little toad‖
(24). Repetition and recurrence of episode is ever significant in literary works.
On a large scale, Shirley offers a naturalist insightful reading of Yorkshire
people. The rugged land of Yorkshire is echoed in its inhabitants who are ―as
yielding to persua sion as they are stubborn against compulsion‖ (222) A point
that occurs in different phrasings in all of the Bronte sisters‘s novels. In Jane

48
Eyre, there is present a secluded Thornfield. Charlotte Bronte‘s varied settings
benefitted from her wider experie nce, when compared to that of Anne and
Emily Bronte‘s. Charlotte Bronte exploits her material experience (of studying
and later teaching in Brussels) in her other works. The Pensionnat in both The
Professor and in Villette is modelled exactly after the Pen sionnat Héger where
Charlotte and Emily Bronte studied in Brussels.
In Agnes Grey , there is the Greys‘ neighbourhood of ―rugged
regions‖ ( Anne Bronte, 9) echoes that of the Brontes‘ rugged place of dwelling.
Agnes recounts being ―brought up in the strictes t seclusion‖ and her ―last [of
many] ramble with Mary on the moors‖ short before leavin g to her first position
(8). That last remembrance enhances the assumption of Mary‘s standing for
Emily Bronte. Anne and Emily Bronte‘s wandering in the moors is a recur rent
image in Gaskell‘s Life with Emily the ‗crowned‘ affectionate lover of the moors.
Wildfell Hall itself is ―too lonely, too unsheltered … Behind it lay a few desolate
fields‖ ( The Tenant , Anne Bronte, 14).
Apart from geography, some personal history (―incidents‖ and
―experiences‖) of the individual Brontes recurs in their works. One such
episode is the protagonists‘ parents union against the will and interest of the
mother‘s family. The Brontes‘ parents union‘s details in the opening chapters of
Mrs. Gaskell‘s Life follow a similar course. Anne Bronte‘s Agnes Grey is the
daughter of ―a clergyman of the north of England‖ (2). Not only sharing its
author‘s initial ‗A‘ and its dwelling locality (Anne Bronte is the daughter of the
Reverend Patrick Bronte, a curate of Haworth – an English village of West
Yorkshire in northern England ), but also the familial history. Agnes‘s mother ―a

49
squire‘s daughter‖ marries the poor Richard Grey against the will of her family
and friends (ibid). Consequently, she was deprived of fortunes of future
inheritance which all goes to her sister. Miss Maria Branwell, Mrs. Bronte, was
the daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell of Penzance who is of a higher status
than that of Mr. Bronte.
Likewise, in Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane Eyre , Jane‘s parents‘ union r an
against the interest of the mother‘s family. In The Professor also, William
Crimeworth‘s parents were wed under similar conditions. His maternal
aristocr atic uncles, Lord Tynedale and Hon. John Seacombe still have a hostile
attitude towards their nephews even after the couple‘s death. Was it not for
blackmail, they would not have provided for William‘ s education. Charlotte
Bronte even registers a minute d etail which accompanies the union. Upon her
marriage, Mrs. Bronte personal belongings were shipped to her upon her
request. The ship and its cargo were drowned. Among the rescued relics were
some Methodist magazin es which were in the Pa rsonage library. In Villette ,
Lucy gets a Catholic pamphlet from Dr. John whose ―seasoning of excitation to
fanaticism‖ reminds her ―of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts [she] had once
read when a child‖ (362).
But what would such matching of fictional episodes with biograph ical
data amount to for the purpose of this study? In his The Family, Sex and
Marriage In England 1500 -1800, Lawrence Stone characterises the romantic
novel as one ―whose central theme was the struggle of love and personal
autonomy against family interest and parental control‖ (Stone, 156). Without
Gaskell‘s enlightening readers into the circumstances and co nditions

50
surrounding the Bronte s‘ union, they might mistake this episode as accounting
for the novels ‘ Romanticism. Anne Bronte seems aware of Stone‘s a rgument
and echoes it in Gilbert ‘s melodramatic contemplation of his prospects of being
Helen‘s husband as he approached Staningley Hall: ―whether she [Helen]
should deem it her duty to risk the slights and censures of the world, the
sorrow and displeasure of those she loved, for a romantic idea of truth and
constancy to me, or to sacrifice her individual wishes to the feelings of her
friends and her own sense of prudence and the fitness of things?‖ ( The Tenant ,
Bronte, 427).
From within the Brontes ‘ househ old comes also the bitter experience
of losing dear ones in consumption. In Jane Eyre , there are the harsh
conditions at Lowood School that consumed Helen Burns, which isolated would
qualify the episode as grotesque romance. Literally in Anne Bronte ‘s Agnes
Grey, the lost dears are two sisters. Agnes was the sixth of six children, one of
the two daughters to survive ―the perils of infancy and early childhood‖ (2).
Anne Bronte was the youngest of a family of five daughters and one son. The
survivors /dead rat io is reversed, however, in Agnes Grey . Anne Bronte‘s two
eldest sisters died of tuberculosis; Maria at the age of eleven, Elizabeth at ten,
a biographical detail that accounts for a realistic quality of the novel. What is
more, I would venture to say that in the novel, though the survived daughters
are two, the mother figure stands for Charlotte Bronte, the third survived sister.
According to Gaskell‘s biography, as soon as Charlotte Bronte leaves school she
assumes the role of the mother taking on her the responsibility of instructing
her sisters and supplying for their education by literally funding it. It was

51
Charlotte‘s job as teacher in Roe Head School that paid the fees of Anne‘s
boarding there. In addition, in Agnes Grey , Agnes and her mother are the
enthusiastic patrons of the school commencement. Agnes‘ s sister Mary has
other pursuits (husband and household husbandry), though she encourages
them and wishes them success. The life dream of establishing their own school
was described in different episo des in Gaskell‘s book usually with Anne and
Charlotte Bronte setting plans and proposing schemes, judging success
chances‘ cons and pros, with Emily supporting the general idea of working
independently and consenting to her sisters‘ plans, rarely offering any.
Charlotte Bronte shares with Anne Bronte the awareness of Stone‘s
argument. Jane Eyre tells how Miss Rosamond Oliver, the wealthy young patron
of the village school, ―was sure my previous history, if known, would make a
delightful romance‖ ( 399). Iron ically, Charlotte Bronte says ―Whenever you
present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always denounce a lie …
whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer
fiction, I adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natu ral‖ ( Shirley ,
403).
The aforementioned ‗school dream‘ is yet another such biographical
episode in Anne and Charlotte Bronte‘s novels. It is the Brontian magical wand
to get away from the distress of the governess position. In Jane Eyre , the Sibyl
reads in Jane‘s mind the thought ―of nothing but your future school?‖ (124). At
the end of Agnes Grey , Agnes and her mother managed to own ―a small house,
commodiously situated in some populous but healthy district, where we will
take a few young ladies to board a nd educate‖ (Anne Bronte, 97).

52
The sole obstacle for the Brontes‘ school to be materialised was their
tight financial means which was caused by their father losing his savings in an
unsuccessful commercial investment with a friend of his. Mr. Bronte‘s fail ure is
employed by Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre . Mr. Rivers, father of St. John and
two daughters, having ―some years ago lost a great deal of money by a man he
had trusted turning bankrupt‖ (372). Hence, the girls urgent need to find
positions as governe sses. Their father is ―not rich enough to give them
fortunes, they must provide for themselves‖ (ibid). So it is in Agnes Grey where
Mr. Grey lost his money with a friend who was entrusted to invest it for him.
After which crisis, Agnes recounts how ―coals and candles were painfully
economized – the pair of candles reduced to one, and that most sparingly used‖
(5); a detail whose original is documented by Gaskell.
Peculiar autobiographical experiences of each of the three sisters are
there as well. A list o f examples would include: Agnes‘s amusing her father
―with singing his favourite songs‖ (31); Agnes‘s ―I took the opportunity of
beginning a letter to my dear friends at home; but the children came up before
I completed it‖ (16). (Episodes whose originals are to be found in Gaskell).
Charlotte Bronte‘s characters‘ eye s trouble which is a real problem
she has in her life caused by ceaseless lace -mending is one such peculiarity.
When Lucy Snowe broke the lunettes of M. Paul sight whose sight ―was
peculiar, no t easily fitted‖, she ―knew the value of these ‗lunettes‘ … his
treasures‖ ( Villett e, 285) , herself has eye s trouble . In The Professor , Frances
complains: ―my sight was beginning to be injured by constant working at fine
lace‖ (108). William himself in m any places repeats: ―my sight is very short‖

53
(18), ―Short -sighted as I am‖ (25), ―with my short sight‖ (46), ―To -day I had
my spectacles‖ (68), ―something stir [in the cemetery] … my short -sighted
vision had caught no form‖ (95).
Emily Bronte‘s peculiarity lies in her wild settings, which echo her
experience of attaching herself closely to the deserted moorlands and their
incessantly blowing winds. She had a short -term experience of governessing
due to her inability to leave her moorlands world to the urban one of her time.
Indeed the material aspect of reality is a crucial point where
Romanticism and Realism meet and diverge. John Laird, in A Study in Realism
says ―If realism is restricted to the description of fact, and if we mean by fact
what is commonly meant by it, then realism can only supply the artist with
some of his material. Realism in Romance, for example, would mean those
tiresome minutiae which every good writer has to reckon with‖ (Laird, 205).
Laird advises romantics ―to attend to those matter s of fact for fear of destroying
the illusion in their narratives if they do not‖ (Laird, 206). But not in the
annoying fashion of thrusting them clumsily. To clarify his point further, he cites
the incident of the lady writing to Dickens ―justly complaini ng that he had no
right to describe her physical -peculiarities so minutely when he gave Miss
Mowcher to the world‖ (Laird, 206). There is no logical objection, Laird holds,
as to ―why an author should not be a reporter if he likes, or why he should not
describe his neighbour‘s furniture or his father‘s bathroom as meticulously as he
chooses‖ (ibid). But he finds it ―foolish to debate whether an author should
confine himself to literal fact, when the purpose of art need not be literal
description at all‖ (ib id).

54
Charlotte Bronte shows awareness of and alertness to this fact when
in Jane Eyre she comments ―I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know
her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a
space of eight years almost in sile nce: a few lines only are necessary to keep up
the links of connection‖ (86). This emission is justifies on the basis that her
book is not ―a regular autobiography‖ ( ibid).
2.3: Psychological Reality
If one agrees with Laird‘s argument that the science -like thrusting of
facts in fiction is dull and annoying, then one might agree that the illusive
psychological gives one the pleasur e of sneaking a look and satisfies the
curiosity of ‗What then?‘ and ‗Is it really so?‘. Moreover, this is a feminine area
of excellence. Women naturally excel men in mastering the art of reading, if not
penetrating into characters and personalities and play elegantly on them. In
Jane Eyre , Jane could easily read the unspoken thoughts of her female cousin
who like other ―[y]oung la dies have a remarkable way of letting you know what
they think … without actually saying the words‖ (247). ―A certain
superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone‖ suffices to
―express fully their sentiments on the point, without com mitting them by any
positive rudeness in word or deed‖ (ibid). In Shirley , Shirley tells ―women read
men more truly than men read women‖ (220). As two paragons of the sexes, in
Villette , we find Madam Beck ―knew something of the world … knew much of
huma n nature‖ (285) while M. de Bassompierre (also Mr. Home) ―was much
taken up with scientific interests; keen, intent, and somewhat oppugnant in
what concerned his favourite pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the

55
ordinary affairs of life‖ (261). So d oes M. Emanuel, also in Villette , ―lack
magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in great things!‖ (345). This
trivialising of ‗ordinary life‘ and ‗human nature‘ affairs is opposed by even those
realist theorists of the factual and the material. So Carl yle, for example, shows
―that human life, even in its simplest or stupidest forms, could be sublime or
terrible , the focal point of forces as powerful as the universe was large‖
(Williams, 111, my emphasis). For romantics, in particular, it is this aspect of
reality which distinguishes them and is echoed in their dreamy, hard -to-grasp
imagery and diction. Damian Grant‘s definition of realism as ―the idea of an
external, physical existence independent of mind‖ (Grant, 9), contrasts with the
romantic locating of reality in the mind of the individual and indeed is capricious
and fluctuating according to the degree of consciousness practis ed by the
author at a certain moment. This, however, does not mean the psychological is
ruled out altogether from Realism. Re alist theorist like Carlyle accepts that a
human being is both a spiritual and social being.
The depiction of psychological reality in novels takes the form of
dramatising the action and interaction of social, physical, material, and
environmental forces i n shaping up the unconscious and setting the conscious
into a reaction. How to achieve this? What tools does the artist need? According
to Day, ―[a] number of Romantic writers suggest that the mind possesses a
faculty [later termed imagination] which enabl es it to see through the forms of
the material world to a greater, spiritual reality behind it‖ (Day, 57).
The psychological is the aspect where The Professor fails (more than
the other novels) and where Charlotte Bronte breaks her Preface promises to

56
realistic treatment of the plot. In Bentley‘s words The Professor ‘s ―realism
seems sometimes so full of gall as to reject digestion‖ (Bentley, 22). The
protagonist is not only romanticised but also idealised. William Crimsworth
dares exhibiting ‗human‘ propens ity to vanity when showing his brother
―countenance with the confidence that one would show an unlearned man of
letters written in Greek; he might see lines, and trace characters, but he could
make nothing of them‖ (11). But he attributes Edward‘s hatred t o William‘s
being a flawless person: ―Had I been in anything inferior to him [Edward], he
would not have hated me so thoroughly, but I know all that he knew … I was
guarded by three faculties – Cautious, Tact, Observation‖(16). In addition, his
household is a temple with ―the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance‖ as
―household gods‖ (ibid). Moral flawlessness, super mental capacities , and divine
wisdom. How imperfect! This blows all the opening -page promises to a realistic
story in which the narrator accepts that ―none of us perfect‖; that he ―was no
pope‖ and ―could not boast infallibility‖ (36, 106).
Indeed some of Charlotte Bronte‘s realistic promises are romantic.
Broken before made. In his book The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal , F.
L. Lu cas explains the romantic dreamy style of writing as an attempt of
―rebellion against a sense of reality‖ and/or ―a sense of society‖. Charlotte
Bronte‘s very claim, in The Professo r‘s Preface, of a realistic plot that is centred
on a hero not loving ―a be autiful girl‖ is thus romantic projection of her inner
crisis of lacking of dazzling beauty. Not to marry ―a lady of rank‖ might be
excused on the grounds that in real life improving one‘s status and situation is
more to be achieved by one‘s labour and the existence of an influential lady in

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the plot who would solve all problems by a word of marriage consent is not
very realistic. But why should he not marry a beautiful one? Charlotte Bronte‘s
―plain‖ and ―homely‖ beauty was one of the traits she was held b ack by. She
carefully portrays her heroine, Frances Henri here, after her own image.
Frances has ―thin face, rather long than round‖ and ―a slender form‖ ( The
Professor , 84, 93) for which reason William calls her ―the elf‖ (145). Exact facial
features of Charlotte Bronte are reported in Gaskell‘s Life. Frances‘s ―small,
taper fingers‖ (93) get special attention from William, just as Charlotte‘s baby
fingers get from Gaskell. Rochester sees in Jane a ―childish and slender
creature‖ ( Jane Eyre , 338), ―my litt le Jane‖ (483). William, in The Professor ,
says that ―for a sensualist [Frances is] charmless, for me a treasure‖ (96). He
has ―confidence in … respect for her‖ and ―another sentiment, as strong as
confidence, as firm as respect, more fervid than rather –that of love‖ (ibid).
Likewise, in Jane Eyre , Rochester‘s senior Butlerboler says, it is only Rochester,
who ―thought [Jane] so very handsome‖ (463). So, ―An hour or two sufficed to
sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had com pleted
an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram‖, says Jane ( Jane Eyre ,
171).
Charlotte Bronte, thus, creates a romantic world of escape where
heroes love plain girls in particular. The physical plainness of characters
receives a considerable focu s and observable repetition. In real life, many
―women can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented‖ ( The Professor ,
130), but usually few men will do it. The theme she is marketing in this
romantic, make -belief world is literally ―the superiority o f moral worth over

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physical charms‖ (ibid). Theoretically, few can argue for the opposite stand. But
to make ‗morality and intellectuality‘ and ‗physicality‘ into separate realms and
every person must then realistically occupy one place at a time is unreal istic
and the argument sounds sophistic . The separateness is emphasised to the
point of making them into dichotomies. William talks about: ―incompatibilities‖
of the physical with the moral ( The Professor , 19). The extreme stand is to be
found in Charlotte Bronte‘s Shirley , where Mr. Moore draws ―analogy between
the moral and physical atmosphere‖ (181). In William‘s reported observations
concerning the Pensionnat‘s stupidest students we find, to take some examples:
Eulalie who is ―very finely shaped … fai r … a Low Country Madonna … [like t he
figures] in Dutch pictures‖ ( The Professor, 47). Whereas Sylvie, the ―ugly little
girl‖ has a dictation notebook which is ―clearly written … contained no error
against sense … few faults of orthography‖ (48).
Examini ng some of the characters in Shirley , would reveal the
Charlottian‘ formula that mates beauty with stupidity or naivety; plainness
(sometimes ugliness) with intelligence and full maturity and morality. Miss
Keeldar‘s (i.e. Shirley‘s) ―real grace [is] in ease of manner‖ (122). Of physical
appearance, her beauty, if allowed to use the word, lies in having no defects
not in possessing charming features. She is ―an erect, slight girl‖ (123). When
talking of her attractive qualities, selection of word is particu larly moderate.
Shirley is ―no ugly heiress … agreeable to the eye … not a blonde … eyes of
the darkest gray‖ (125).
It is something new in a novel by Charlotte Bronte to have Caroline
―fair enough to please, even at the first view‖ ( Shirley , 47). A nd when dressed

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in her Whitsuntide‘s dress, she ―formed a picture, not bright enough to dazzle,
but fair enough to interest; not brilliantly striking, but very delicately pleasing‖
(183). Things fall in place, however, when she is also weak and in constant
need of her cousin‘s, Mademoiselle Hortense Moore‘s, instruction, Shirley‘s
guidance and Mrs. Preyor‘s guardianship.
Charlotte Bronte‘s romantic dichotomy threatens the coherence of
her plots. The dichotomy makes William‘s characterising of his mother
perplexing. He wishes to assert his mother‘s beauty and at the same time to
confirm her intellectual merit as her ‗dazzling‘ charm despite her lack of beauty!
William criticises aristocratic girls, who ―cultivate beauty from childhood
upwards, and may by car e and training attain to a certain degree of excellence
in that point, just like the oriental odalisques‖ whom one would recognise from
first glimpse ( The Professor , 14). At the very same occasion, he wants to
oppose Hunsden‘s opinion that questions his mo ther‘s being ―pretty‖ with her
―sunk eyes and hollow cheeks‖ (13). The novel favours intellectual charms. So
Hunsden is made to realise William‘s mother ―is peculiar … seems to think. You
can have a talk with that woman, if she were alive, on other subje cts than
dress, visiting, and compliments‖ (ibid). But suddenly, his praise shifts to
tracing ―Aristocratic written on the brow and defined in the figure‖ (14) which is
ironic since the words are uttered by Hunsden, for whom ―aristocrats‖ are
abhorrent and for whom a love based on intellectual ‗charm‘ is idealistic. There
is more contradiction, when Hunsden says he cannot ―admire a head of that
sort [William‘s mother];‖ for ―it wants character and force‖ (ibid).

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William himself slips and exposes his ideals. He finds in Frances‘s
―enthusiastic heart and clever head‖, ―generosity‖, and ―genius‖, that qualifies
her as a good teacher, a charm that gets ―the strongest hold on my preference‖
(The Professor , 130). When married, William‘s happiness with his wife is set at
―six o‘clock P.M.‖ since then ―the lady -directress vanished from before my eyes,
and Frances Henri, my own little lace -mender, was magically restored to my
arms‖ (144). His heart throbs for nothing more than any Victorian man of the
time than the do mestic angel of the house. The sight he likes of her is not while
teaching but while lace -mending. Significant still is that in the daytime, the time
of school, William refers to his place of dwelling as ―house‖, whereas at six
o‘clock P.M. he calls it ―ho me‖ and ―heaven‖ which is parallel to the
transforming of Frances from ―Madame the directress‖ or ―the lady -directress‖
to ―Frances Henri‖ the lace -mender (144). It is not even the transforming but
vanishing of the directress and the restoration of the lac e-mender.
Charlotte Bronte‘s heroes are not handsome either. William is not a
―strikingly attractive one‖ ( The Professor , 2/3), his ―features … [are] less
regular… in form … thinner , slighter, not so tall [in com parison to greedy
Edward]‖ (8). He is ―young, but not youthful, … no but t for the shafts of Cupid‖
(43). William says there is ―no point of a handsome man about [him] , except
being straight and without deformity‖ (105). He is ―not handsome, and no
dressing can make [him] so‖ (42). In the sam e manner, Rochester , in Jane
Eyre, tells Jane: ―you are not pretty any more than I am handsome‖ (140).
Rochester whom ―most people would have thought … an ugly man‖ (141), has
properties that are not ―calculated to recommend him particularly in their

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[ladies‘] eyes‖ ( 168). Charlotte‘s heroes‘ ugliness might be viewed realistic in
two senses yet. First, as said before, it sometimes happens that a woman had a
crash for a ―downright ugly man‖. Second, usually an inferior man is the only
possible lover of a plain woman. Jane confesses ―Had he [Rochester] been a
handsome, heroic -looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand
thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had
hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one‖ (119).
The-lack-of-beauty -being -an-escape -from-the-bitter-reality argument
applies to Jane Eyre with more detailing of the Victorian standards that
worships ‗dazzliness‘. When Bessie and Abbot, the Reed‘s servants, recount the
misfortun e of Jane‘s parents and her own misfortune, Abbot believes ―if she
were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one
really cannot care for such a little toad as that‖ (24). Even compassion for one‘s
misery depends on their degree of beauty. The heroine herself is touched,
shaped by and insecure from that ideology which makes it even harder for her
to come to terms with her plainness. In the trio of Jane, Mary and Diana Rivers,
Jane ranks Diana ―a superior and a leader‖ on account of Diana‘s ―Physically‖
far excelling Jane (380). When Bessie tells Jane of her not being beautiful,
though Jane ―smiled at Bessie' frank answer‖ , she confesses ―I was not quite
indifferent to its import‖ (95). In another place , Jane confesses: ―I ever wis hed
to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would
permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished
to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be
tall, stately, and fin ely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so

62
little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked‖ (103). So does
Lucy, in Villette , confess: ―I must own great fear of displeasing –a strong wish
moderately to please M. Paul‖ (422) which is not much different from
coquettish Paulina ( or Polly ), whose ―pleasure was to please Graham‖ (26) and
treats him like her son, endearing him with the words: ―My dear boy!‖ (22).
Lucy‘s Paul Emanuel, who is not less childish (―fond of bonbons‖ ( Villette, 303)),
is allowed to have sexist ideology of ―the nobler sex‖ (121) and ―that lovely,
placid, and passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly
thought and sense could find rest for its aching temples‖ (310). His liking of
―mediocri ty‖ suits his interest and ―taste for gardening‖ (360) and his guardian
role for his students in the pastoral scene: ―When hot noon arrived … our
shepherd [M. Paul] collected his sheep [Lucy and the students] from the
pasture, and proceeded to lead us al l softly home‖ (335).
Devotionally, Jane ―had a theoretical reverence and homage for
beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination‖ (119). Her expressed desire ―to please‖
reveals something deeper than ―theoretical reverence‖, though. Her whole fury
at the sta tus quo is only a form of romantic escape from the reality in which her
devotional reverences are neve r answered by the beauty deity.
Like Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte explores her heroines‘ defects.
Unlike her sister though, Anne show s them deficient. Wh en Agnes‘ s mother
warns Agnes of the difficulties lying for her as a teacher, Agnes responds: ―I am
so fond of children‖ (6). She makes no effort to conceal her naive inexperienced
anticipations, among which is her losing temper with the objects of her
fondness. She is excited about her ―delightful‖ and ―charming‖ future job (7).

63
But graphically, she depicts her ―disappointments‖ (14) and admits her job is
―arduous‖ and no bed of roses (16). She determines to be armed with
―Patience, Firmness, and Persevera nce‖ (17). But records how she falls short of
winning a simple pronunciation battle with stubborn Mary Ann. It was ―a trial of
strength between her and me, in which she generally came off victorious‖ ,
Agnes reports (18). Determination of being armed is dif ferent from acquiring
the weapon and put ting it into effective use.
In her second position, she is careful in setting expectations and
hesitant as to their solidity. She no longer uses affirmative words like ―surely‖.
Instead she explained her choice of we apons as ―I knew (at least I believed )
unremitting patience and perseverance could overcome them [the difficulties of
instructing the Bloomfislds]‖ (17, my emphasis). Her development in character
after her first experience is not, however, idealised. She i s clever but that does
not mean she is to be fully experienced upon the first encounter grasping the
gist of her first lesson and absorbed it fully. Sticking up to her resolution of
teaching again, she tries refuting her mother‘s worries since ―everybody i s not
like Mr. And Mrs. Bloomfield‖ (31). She thinks naively that they are the worst.
So Agnes matures but within credible, realistic measures. Older than the
previous pupils, the Murrays ―would be more rational, more teachable, and less
troublesome‖ (34), Agnes expects, which proves far from true.
In her second position, Agnes struggles ―to keep this position‖ and
chooses to toil as a governess. She does not, however, claim her intentions to
be those of a ―martyr to filial piety‖ (34). Honestly, she states that it is
basically, though not solely, for her ―own honour among [her] friends‖ (ibid).

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Moreover, Agnes does not hesitate to confess that she is a hypocritica l
―flatterer‖ at some occasions which she even praises as a functioning strategy.
To gain ―the cordial friendship‖ of her employers, she realises that she needs
―to utter a word of flattery at each convenient opportunity‖ (24). After
discovering the insincerity of the senior Mrs. Bloomfield, though furious, Agnes
resumes being interested in the old ―grandmamma‘s‖ cough (ibid). At second
meeting, she pretends to be ―glad to see her [the grandmamma] looking well‖
(ibid). Later upon winning her second position, she develops her strategy
flattery. She realises how the amount of flattery needs to be prop ortional to the
addressee‘s wish and inclination. In her own words: ―now I determined to be
wiser, and began with as much form and ceremony as any member … would
likely to require‖ (37). She becomes ―used to wearing a placid smiling
countenance when [her ] heart was bitter within ‖ (88). What makes me label
the cited episodes of ―flattery‖ as ‗hypocrisy‘ instead is the fact that Agnes‘s
‗soft soap‘ springs out of a ―spirit of misanthropy‖ (65). To admit she is relating
her story as an educator ; detailing he r laborious pains in implementing Christian
decency and virtue in her pupils, it is a matchless confession to announce her
own ―misanthropy‖.
Anne Bronte‘s realism reaches its peak when her surrogate ―I‖, in
Agnes Grey, is about to express a wish to be the wife of Mr. Weston: ―God
grant the partner of that home [Weston‘s] may be worthy of his choice … And
how delightful it would be to –‖ but shrinks from proceeding (76). The reader
may read it without recalling the Preface promise of disclosing all and frankly.
But Agnes reminds them, however: ―I began this book with the intention of

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concealing nothing‖ (ibid). This reminder shakes her assumed truthfulness. She
could have attributed this omission to the triviality of the omitted. She did
otherwise . She rev eals the worth of the omitted part , and her intentional and
conscious ‗concealment‘ and that her ellipsis is meaningful and expressive. But
these secrets fall in the category of ―some thoughts that all the angels in
heaven are welcome to behold, but not ou r brother -men – not even the best
and kindest among them‖ (ibid). So even the fictional mask she speaks from
behind has realistic measure to move within.
Praying to God to grant her the happiness of the affection she yearns
for, she tries to be submitting to ―Thy will‖ but implies how she desires His will
to look like (68). She knows this is ―a prayer – both men and women would
have scorned [her] for‖ (ibid). Her questioning of the Creator‘s will and wisdom
in some things is the place where her earthliness is most evident. She asks
questions that all people ( be they pious, religious, devoted , or on the contrary )
asked at some point in their lives but dared not utter in pretence of pure
submission to divinity. Agnes is human, ‗vulnerable‘ to ‗impious‘ questio ns such
as : ―why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of
it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit to both themselves and
others‖ (77)? This question not only makes the ―reader … puzzled to answer‖
(85) but also propose s injustice of His ‗beauty distribution‘ of which Charlotte
Bronte‘s strive s to show satisfaction with. Further more, she questions the
distribution of happiness and misery complaining of her miserable allotment:
I have lived nearly three -and-twenty years, and I have suffered much,
and tasted little pleasure yet; is it likely my life all through will be so

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clouded? Is it not possible that God may hear my prayers, disperse
these gloomy shadows, and grant me some beams of heaven‘s
sunshine yet? Will he entire ly deny to me those blessings which are so
freely given to others, who neither ask them nor acknowledge them
when received? May I not still hope and trust? (101)
Agnes Grey is indecisive: ―should I shrink from the work that God
has set before me, because i t was not fitted to my taste‖ (104). Also, a voice is
given to those who think of ―the Deity as a terrible task -maker, rather than a
benevolent father‖ (50/51). Poverty -stricken Nancy Brown wonders: ―I even
took the sacrament; but I felt as though I were e ating and drinking my own
damnation all th‘ time‖ ( Agnes Grey , 57).
Agnes Grey never romanticises her failures , exaggerates her
accomplishments, overdraws her mental excellences to be dazzling to the
Victorian beauty -worshipping eye; or solidifies her fait h against being shaken.
On the contrary, she dwells much on the matchlessness of her romantic
expectations of teaching and the stony reality of students; she emphasizes her
invisibility in the eyes of those who are intellectually far beneath her; allows he r
shaken faith (faith crisis) to find expression.
Anne Bronte‘s expressing of such statements of human trespass
against divinity could be categorized as the psychology of belief. Huntingdon is
jealous and envious of the Maker for the devotion Helen shows t o Him. When
Helen tries to reason with him into considering ―what is the longest life of
misery to a whole eternity of peace?‖ ( The Tenant , 328), Anne Bronte allows
him the paradox of human vanity whereby humans could, like Huntingdon, see

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all what Helen ― say is indisputably true‖ but still feel more drawn to the ―already
before [him]‖ than the ―promised‖ heaven (186). His argument is even allowed
the logic of his inner convictions that ―I am hungry, and I see before me a good
substantial dinner; I am told that if I abstain from this to -day I shall have a
sumptuous feast to -morrow, consisting of all manner of dainties and delicacies.
… I should be loth to wait till to -morrow … the solid viands of to -day are more
to my taste … I don't see to -morrow's ba nquet, and how can I tell that it is not
all a fable, … who knows but what I may secure both this and that?‖ (ibid).
Huntingdon is suspicious not only of God‘s immaterial promises, but
of God Himself: ―What is God? – I cannot see Him or hear Him. – God is only an
idea‖ (402). He goes further into complaining of Helen‘s being ―too religious.
Now I like a woman to be religious, and I think your piety one of your greatest
charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my
thinki ng, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly
lord‖ (185). He puts himself on equal footing with God.
The Tenant presents characters true to their time. Anne‘s young
Helen is not mature beyond her age, unlike Charlotte Bronte‘s Jan e. Like her
peers, Helen tells Milicent Hargrave of her deep wish to love ―the Sir Herberts
and Valentines … if you can find them‖ and it is precisely and only because one
cannot, she will be content with ―one so unlike the stilted heroes of romance‖ a
―flesh and blood lover‖ (163). Her taste and intellect develop gradually and
within credible measures that parallel her experience.
Her immature crash on Huntingdon‘s allurement is illustrative. She is
ensnared by one who ― seemed to have a better appreciati on of [her] frame of

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mind‖ (425, my emphasis). His charms echo heroes of the rosy pages of
romance. In this regard, she is much like Emily Bronte‘s Isabella: ―victimized by
the genre of romance‖. The charms that move her are: ―a very lively and
entertainin g companion‖ (121). The faults her ‗mind‘ passes by are ―a little too
much careless boldness in his manner and address‖ (ibid) and because she was
―in so good a humour‖ at the moment, they ―did not anger me‖ (ibid), unlike
mature Helen who objects to ―talking where there is no exchange of ideas or
sentiments, and no good given or received‖ (72). More is to be collected of
mature Helen‘s intellectual appeal from Gilbert‘s mouth.
Gilbert is also more human in his desires and throbs of emotions and
feelings, u nlike Charlotte Bronte‘s William Crimsworth. His first enchantment is
spelled by Helen‘s outward beauty; a ‗luxury‘ Anne Bronte would allow her
characters to entertain. In the church, when Gilbert first sees Helen, he is
attracted to ―the elegant white han d that held the pencil, and the graceful neck
and glossy raven curls‖ (56). Realistic because love at first sight is motivated by
what is seen ; what lies before one‘s sight . He is spell -bound by her eloquent
discourse because she is ―looking so beautiful w ithal‖ (41). Unlike morally ideal
Crimsworth, Gilbert ‘s soul has place for villainy and malice. He ―felt a kind of
selfish gratification in watching her husband's gradual decline in her good
graces, and seeing how completely he extinguished all her affecti on at last‖
(354).
Emily Bronte poses a problem of categorising in this aspect. Her
work is romantic by the consent of most critics. The passions she portrayed of
love, hatred, and revenge are intense, gloomy, and fierce which are not hard to

69
meet in reali ty though rarely prevail in a whole community of people as in the
Heights and the Thrushcross Grange. By this stage, it is safer and more useful
to appeal to Charlotte Bronte instead of jumping into hasty judgments. ‗What
kind of people Emily socialises wi th?‘ is the question whose answer, Charlotte
Bronte believes, makes the community of Wuthering Heights to have a material
origin. I will conclude by quoting an illuminating part from Charlotte‘s Preface to
Wuthering Heights in length here (a paraphrasing w ould fail to deliver the
intense biographical details, and would not bring anything new):
Where delineation of human character [as it appeared in Wuthering
Heights ] is concerned, the case is different. I am bound to avow that
she [Emily Bronte] had scarcel y more practical knowledge of the
peasantry amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country
people who sometimes pass her convent gates. My sister's disposition
was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favoured and fostered her
tendency to seclusi on; except to go to church or take a walk on the
hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home. Though her feeling for
the people round was benevolent, intercourse with them she never
sought; nor, with very few exceptions, e ver experienced. And yet she
knew them: knew their ways, their language, their family histories;
she could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with detail,
minute, graphic, and accurate; but WITH them, she rarely exchanged
a word. Hence it ensued that what her mind had gathere d of the real
concerning them, was too exclusively confined to those tragic and
terrible traits of which, in listening to the secret annals of every rude

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vicinage, the memory is sometimes compelled to receive the impress.
Her imagination, which was a spiri t more sombre than sunny [this
account for her gloom], more powerful than sportive [this accounts for
intensity], found in such traits material whence it wrought creations
like Heathcliff, like Earnshaw, like Catherine. […] Heathcliff betrays
one solitar y human feeling, and that is NOT his love for Catherine;
which is a sentiment fierce and inhuman: a passion such as might boil
and glow in the bad essence of some evil genius; a fire that might
form the tormented centre –the ever – suffering soul of a magna te of
the infernal world: and by its quenchless and ceaseless ravage effect
the execution of the decree which dooms him to carry Hell with him
wherever he wanders. No; the single link that connects Heathcliff with
humanity is his rudely -confessed regard fo r Hareton Earnshaw –the
young man whom he has ruined; and then his half -implied esteem for
Nelly Dean. These solitary traits omitted, we should say he was child
neither of Lascar nor gipsy, but a man's shape animated by demon
life–a Ghoul –an Afreet (5/6 ).
2.4: Integrating Realities
As has been said before, both Realism and Romanticism depict the
three discussed realities. Moreover, they integrate them to offer scenes of
varied moments thus avoiding the annoying effect of factual linear reporting.
This is why both claim that they represent reality. The difference, however, lies
in the proportional distribution of space devoted to each in the integrated
whole. Reading in the theoretical literature of Realism and Romanticism, I noted

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that more space is given to the social and the material in Realism; much to the
psychological in Romanticism. Moreover, this proportional distribution stands
behind the visibility and traceability of reality in realistic works and its
elusiveness to be pinned down in Romanticism. Realism chooses the visual,
intelligible aspects grasped by almost all readers. Romanticism, on the other
hand, takes on the abstract which is only observed by reflectors, meditators,
and the imaginative.
Williams in chronicling the historical development of Realism stopped
at the Victorian social novel (or the novel of purpose) of the late 1840s which
―embodies some central Realist ideas‖ (Williams, 116). Social novelists had a
―naïve confidence that Reality consisted in the material and social world aroun d
them‖ the psychological is no crucial constituent. It is naive because Williams
holds that the term ―Realist‖ is most appropriately applicable to describe the
collective characteristics , shared by novelists , among which is the
―unprecedented physical, so cial, psychological detail‖ (Williams, Introduction,
xi). So we find in The Professor , that the issue of old maids, for example , is not
depicted as a social failure or in terms of their tight financial means but also as
psychological. They are not the anno ying talkative, backbiting , old lot of people ,
but a suffering group of humans whose ―life must doubtless be void and vapid –
her heart strained and empty‖ (123). Appeal is made to anatomy to convince
the cold -hearted readers and society members , unmoved by the passionate
suffering of others, of the humanity of old maids: ―Anatomists will tell you that
there is a heart in the withered old maid‘s carcase –the same as in that of any
cherished wife or proud mother in the land‖ ( ibid).

72
Likewise , Abrams locates R ealism within ―theories which agree in
assigning to the represented universe the primary control over a legitimate
work of art‖ (Abrams, 7). Abrams‘ ―universe‖ includes ―people and actions
[social], ideas and feelings [psychological], material things and e vents, or
super -sensible essences‖ (Abrams, 6, my emphasis).
The model of achieving the comprehensive realistic representation
that combines or relates the outer and the inner is to be found in Austen‘s
formula: ―combination of internalized action and con crete social environment‖
(Williams, 13). Williams cites ―the flexibility which Austen maintains between
report of Emma‘s state of mind and feeling and other elements of narrative and
comment‖ as an example (Williams, 17, 18).
Abrams, on the other hand, l ocates Romanticism under the category
―expressive theories of art‖ whose central tendency is that ―A work of art is
essentially the internal made external‖ (Abrams, 22). In Wuthering Heights ,
Catherine married because she ―has no meaningful choices … mus t marry
Edgar because there is no one else for her to marry and a lady must marry …
Catherine herself perceives, social and biological forces have fiercely combined
against her‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 277). But the novel devotes most of its space
to portray ing the grim inner realities externalised as a result of that union.
In The Mirror and the Lamp , Abrams sees ―The habitual reading of
passion, life, and physiognomy into the landscape‖ as ―common to most of the
major romantic poets‖ (Abrams, 55). Another t erm for this is ‗Pathetic Fallacy‘.
Richter defines Romanticism as that which ―embodied spirit -world‖ (Abrams,
212). Charlotte‘s novels are rich of examples for this moral -physical -atmosphere

73
connection. For example, in Jane Eyre , the River‘s garden is ―da rk with yew and
holly – and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom‖ (379).
In Shirley , ―Yorkshire people are as yielding to persuation as they are stubborn
against compulsion‖ (222) echoing their rugged stony region. Bentley, just like
Charlotte Bronte , attributes the misanthropist heroes of Emily Bronte to her
wandering in the Parsonage neighbouring ―untouched moorland wildness, the
strong winds ever blowing there powerfully and freely‖ that ―provided a moral
inspiration … These moors … the love of liberty‖ (Bentley, 12).
Grant draws the attention to the near synonymy between the
―realist/naturalist phenomenon ‖, on the other hand. Naturalism , in this context ,
is Realism‘s Pathetic Fallacy. Grant cites Taine‘s account of the universe as a
―great mechanism‖ where everything ―could be understood in terms of cause
and effect‖ (Grant, 36). In Taine‘s words: ―there are causes for ambition,
courage, and truthfulness as there are for digestion, muscular movement, and
animal warmth. Vice and virtu e are products like vitriol and sugar‖ (ibid).
Naturalism has a ―firm, declared faith in science‖ and, as Grant shows
―Naturalism took its name from science –the naturalist as observer of natural
phenomena‖ (Grant, 40). Zola applies this parallel in works of fiction where
―The novelist is both observer (empirical) and experimenter (scientific): the
observer prepares the ground where characters may appear and things may
happen, then the scientist appears and begins the experiment; sets the
characters in moti on in a particular story‖ (Grant, 42). Laird also mentions
naturalism that starts from ―the nervous system and maintain that

74
consciousness is just the central part of a delicate neural adjustment
comprehensively organized‖ (Laird, 150).
In Agnes Grey , ther e is the theme of the relationship between one‘s
mood and actions and one‘s surroundings. Agnes wonders how she could ―be
happy in a house full of enemies‖ (100). She has also worries of the moral
effect of her surroundings: ―as [she] could not make [her] young companions
better, feared exceedingly that they would make [her] worse‖ (60). She dreads
―lest [her] very moral perceptions should become deadened, [her] distinctions
of right and wrong confounded, and all [her] better faculties be sunk at last,
beneath the baneful influence of such a mode of life‖ (ibid). Circumstances and
feeling are coextensive, she holds. So, when ―circumstances might be
changed‖, her same tasks will be done but ―with different feelings‖ (8).
This is the second distinguishing fea ture of integrating realities (the
first being space distribution). Romantic ‗Pathetic Fallacy‘ projects the inner on
the outer. Realism‘s Naturalism traced the imprints of the outer on the inner. It
is the difference betw een conditions of life to be ―used ‖ and to be ―dominated‖.
In The Tenant , Anne Bronte‘s direction of projection is romantic in
this sense. The morning following the night Gilbert saw Helen with Fredrick
Lawrence was ―dull, gloomy‖ and he analogises : ―the weather had changed like
my prospec ts, and the rain was pattering against the window‖ (96). The day
after ―was a dull, drizzly day; but that was no matter: it was all the more
suitable to my frame of mind‖ (101). The day following Gilbert‘s hitting
Lawrence with the whig and thus taking hi s revenge was still ―rainy like its
predecessor; but towards evening it began to clear up a little‖ (108). The next

75
morning, when Helen offered to give him explanation of his seeing her with
Lawrence, ―was fair and promising. […] A light wind swept over th e corn, and
all nature laughed in the sunshine … But no ray of sunshine could reach my
heart, no breeze could freshen it; nothing could fill the void my faith, and hope,
and joy in Helen Graham had left, or drive away the keen regrets and bitter
dregs of lingering love that still oppressed it‖ (108). Having finished reading
Helen‘s diary, he ―opened the window and put out my head to catch the cooling
breeze, and imbibe deep draughts of the pure morning air. A splendid morning
it was; the half -frozen dew lay thick on the grass, the swallows were twittering
round me, the rooks cawing, and cows lowing in the distance; and early frost
and summer sunshine mingled their sweetness in the air‖ (354).
So was Helen‘s happiness by the approach of ―January; spring‖
altered by the feelings of ―dreading the consequences of its arrival. That sweet
season, I once so joyously welcomed as the time of hope and gladness, awaken
now far other anticipations by its return‖ (236). Spring comes to mean for
Helen that Huntingdon wi ll go to London again with the same friends of whose
conduct Helen disapproves. Huntingdon‘s rackety ways blow spring ‘s calmness
away.
In Wuthering Heights , the inner is the starting point in anticipating
the outer conditions. Catherine, we are told, ―had seasons of gloom and silence
now and then: they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband,
who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous
illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits before. The return of

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sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him [her husband]‖ (Emily
Bronte, 94).
Catherine Linton relates to Mrs. Dean how once she and Linton
Heathcliff
were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a
hot July day wa s lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in
the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about
among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the
blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his
most perfect idea of heaven's happiness: mine was rocking in a
rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds
flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds,
and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on eve ry side, and the
moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by
great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and
woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with
joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstas y of peace; I wanted all to sparkle
and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half
alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in
his; and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very
snappish (256).
When Edgar allows Isabella to go to Wuthering Heights, she
―rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection … made the

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house a paradise for several days; … master and servants profiting from the
perpetual sunshine‖ (102).
The night wh en Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights (when
he gathered from Catherine‘s talk to Mrs. Dean that her marriage to him would
be degrading), ―the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was
a violent wind, as well as thunder, and eith er one or the other split a tree off at
the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down
a portion of the east chimney -stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into
the kitchen -fire‖ (86).
In Jane Eyre , there was a splitti ng of a chestnut tree (277) in the
orchard following Rochester‘s proposal to Jane. Moments before that physical
split, Jane was telling Rochester (in the famous orchard scene when he
proposes) ―I am torn away now, and cannot return‖ (274).
In Shirley , move ment takes the path from the outer ―larger historical
and political questions‖ into the inner ―personal tribulations‖ of workers and
manufacturers:
The period of which I write was an overshadowed one in British
history… especially in the history of the n orthern provinces. War was
then at its height. Europe was all involved therein. England, if not
weary, was worn with long resistance –yes, and half her people were
weary too, and cries out for peace on any terms. National honour was
become a mere empty nam e, of no value in the eyes of many… their
sight was dim with famine; and for a morsel of meat they would have
sold their birthright (Charlotte Bronte, 19).

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Then she goes on detailing and listing dryly those ‗questions‘:
The ‗Order in Council,‘ provoked b y Napoleon‘s Milan and Berlin
decrees, and forbidding neutral powers to trade with France, had by
offending America, cut off the principal market of the Yorkshire
woollen trade, and brought it consequent to the verge of Ruin…. The
Brazils, Portugal, Sici ly, were all overstocked by nearly two years‘
consumption….. inventions in machinery…. greatly reducing the
number of hands necessary to be employed…. thousands out of
work… bad harvest supervened….. The throes of a sor t of moral
earthquake were felt (ibid).

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Chapter Three
‘Man’ and the ‘Language of Man’
In the previous chapter, the realistic representation of human
individuals had been established as an aspect of social life. Ruskin, an important
theorist of Realism, emphasises the pre -eminence of delineating veraciously
―actuality‖, ―the sympathetic emotion‖ and ―actual individuals‖ in rendering life
in realistic art (Williams, 120). Correspondingly, Laird recapitulates the
resourceful lore and wisdom to be gone after by Realism aspirants in the
following fashion: ―human knowledge … human observation … man‘s mind as
they find it‖, never to hunt for ―celestial apprehending of some impersonal
cosmic intelligence‖ (Laird, 149). The chief qualities of this down -to-earth
knowledge being that it is ―acquired continuously … fostered by education and
experience … not quite unsystematic or quite capricious‖ (Laird, 150).
Furthermore, Laird characterizes the human mind as it is found in life as one
that ―grows … then grows old … learns … forgets … suggests … studies …
takes its ease‖ (Laird, 150).
On such grounds, I understand how Lucy Snowe‘s ― seeming
inconsistency‖ when her ―opinion of Dr. John undergoes modification‖ ( Villett ,
167, my emphasis) does not violate her claims to telling truth . On the contrary ,
they attest to those claims. She unveils ―the feeling as at the time [she] felt it
… the view of character as it appeared when discovered‖ (ibid). Lucy Snowe
would even set forth to prove how two contradictory sketches of the same
character (or, person) can be true. One example is the two accounts of

80
Graham Bretton –the public and private –the outdoor and the indoor accounts.
The two accounts are structurally set in one paragraph as if expressing a
semantically related whole while ea ch, indeed, can easily be characterised into
a distinctive line of approaching Graham‘s character and personality. In the first
account, the public Graham, ―is oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his
energies, as earnest in their exercise‖ (172) . In the second, the Graham by the
fireside, ―there is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he is;
pleasure in homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in receiving the
same‖ (ibid).
Another example is to be found in Lucy‘s accounts of Paulina. The
paragraph devoted to sketching the antithetical portrayals of Paulina
comprehends not two, not three but four ―different moods for different people‖
(262). With her father, Paulina ―really was still a child, or child -like, affectionate,
merry , and playful. With me [i.e., Lucy] she was serious, and as womanly as
thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and
reliant, but not expansive. With Graham she was shy … endeavoured to shun
him‖ (ibid). Paulina shifts between her different moods consciously. She
endears herself to Lucy: ―Oh, it will be pain to wake papa from his dream, and
tell him I am no more a little girl!‖ (329).
This multiplicity of masks and varying moods is to be found in Anne
Bronte‘s novels. It has bee n traced in the previous chapter in the development
of Agnes from her first experience as governess through her second
governessing experience, to Agnes, the owner of a school. It has been traced in
Helen of The Tenant . Helen the naive girl values her aunt ‘s advice but does not

81
find it practical. Helen the mature lady does not parrot but echoes with
conviction her aunt‘s advice and pours it into the ears of dashing Easther.
With Emily Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights , wild passion remains wild,
never calms down, fades, gets dim, or rationalized through the characters‘
experience. It only grows wilder.
Like Laird, Charlotte Bronte advises novelists to look for material in
real life ( The Professor , 90). In contrast to Laird‘s outline of human knowledge
and human min d, however, Charlotte Bronte‘s narrator in The Professor advises
novelists never to ―elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture –
still seldom sink them to the depths of despair‖ (90) because she seeks to
represent ―the man of regular lif e and rational mind never despair‖ (91). What
guarantee has the ―rational mind‖ to stop Laird‘s circle of the life of mind,
including among others growing old, forgetting and taking rest? Are there no
people entertaining ―the heights of rapture‖ or others suffering in ―the depths of
despair‖ in ―real life‖? On the other hand, is not this a rejection of early –
nineteenth century Wordsworthian Romanticism, which ―sought its heroes in
the rude, primitive, inventing ages, or even among savages and barbarians‖
(Beers, 214). Charlotte Bronte ‘s model of the in -between -extremes ―regular life
and rational mind‖ is embodied in Mdle. Zoraide. This lady is nothing like the
―women of novelists and romancers‖ who are ―made up of sentiment, either for
good or bad‖ ( The Pro fessor , 50). Rather, Mdle Zoraide‘s ―staple ingredient is
abstract reason‖ (ibid).
In this chapter, more will be said about a particular aspect of human
(or ‗Man‘) representation, namely that of language. (Of human psychology and

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social behaviour enough ha d been said in the previous chapter.) For most
literary theorists, the representation of ‗humans‘ is inseparable from language
use. To take an illustrative example of use of language, I will show how the
very same human word ‗mother‘ can be employed in pla in realistic manner or
invested to allude to some transcendental concept that has little in common
with that word. In the latter use, the writer highlights and elaborates that ‗little
in common‘ quality (qualities). In Shirley , ‗mother‘ is used twice; once to
designate an earthly mother, then a metaphysical one. For Caroline, ‗mother‘ is
the ―gentle human form‖ she ―ascribed to her own mother; unknown, unloved,
but not unlonged for‖ (200). This is different from ―the mighty and mystical
parent of Shirley‘s visions [i.e., nature]‖ (ibid). It is the difference between the
earthly ―filial hopes‖ and the celestial ―Titan visions‖ (ibid).
As with ‗reality,‘ both realists and romantics agree with Wordsworth‘s
doctrine of ―the real language of man‖. Notwithstanding , reading further into
the theoretical literature of each would strike one with the emphasis Realism
and Romanticism , alike, put on figurative language which would hardly be
understood as ‗plain speech‘ of everyday life. Abrams shows how language
occupies a priority position in romantics‘ writings and in particular their
celebration and use of figures of speech (Abrams, 23). Lucas , too, lists
symbolism among the leading romantic features which he distinguishes from
ordinary plain speech as the ―use of langu age in a dreamier way; with vague
overtones and associations‖ (Lucas, 48). Harmonious with this use of
symbolism and dreamy language is the romantics ‘ tendency to keep their
heroes‘ character ―shadowy‖ (Lucas, 123).

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Figurative language is a creative use of language and a criterion of
worth for realists, as well. The writer, Grant affirms, ―starts with things‖ already
in existence but ―it is not enough for him simply to ‗name‘ these. The details
must somehow be made active, available‖ (61). How so? It is met aphor that
adds ―the yeast of the imagination to the material dough‖ (ibid).
This poses a problem of reconciliation with Wordswo rth‘s ‗the real
language of men .‘ The burning question of ―whether these are the natural
utterance of emotion and imagination or the deliberate aping of poetic
conventions‖ which Abrams raises in the romantic context, is also valid in the
realistic one (Abrams, 23).
In her Preface to The Tenant , Anne Bronte talks of her ―duty to
speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God‖ (2) . Though she faithfully
abides by her doctrine that favours calling vices by their names, her defence of
this very doctrine is carried out in an imagery of flowers and snares where
flowers are the beautified rendering of harsh realities (snares). A similar image
is invoked and elaborated further in a debate between Helen and Gilbert.
Anne‘s hero, Gilbert, carries out the flowers/snares debate and develops it into
more details and . First, in the context of Helen‘s refusal to allow Arthur, her
son, a drink , Gilbert rhetorically asks her: ―What is it that constitutes virtue,
Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist
temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist?‖ and in allegorical
words: ―If you would have your son to wa lk honourably through the world, you
must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly
over them‖ (22).

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In distinguishing the workings of ‗reason‘ and those of ‗imagination ,‘
Lucy, in Villette , gives an elaborate reflection f ull of imagery to conclude that
reason is an act of witchcraft. Reason is ―a step -mother‖ obeyed out ―of fear,
not of love‖ (199). Whereas imagination is ―that kinder Power who holds my
secret and sworn allegiance‖ (ibid). Or as Gilbert and Gubar put it, L ucy
concludes that ―the tyranny of heaven is associated with Right Reason,‖ and
that ―Satan is Romantically anti -rational in his exploration of the secret depths
of himself and of the cosmos‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 202). The very parts
contemplating the roman tic terms ‗imagination‘ and ‗fancy‘ are decked with
imagery and metaphors. So are Dr. John‘s first impressions of the Pensionnat
and its ‗Ednic‘ garden as he stole sight of it from his attic.
In Wuthering Heights , the characters‘ choice of diction is disto rting
and disturbing if tested in relation to the ordinary usages. Love is deadly and
murderous. Death is reviving and strikingly connotes union. Both could hardly
be categorised as exchanges of everyday life. Catherine treats her beloved
Heathcliff ―infer nally‖ like an ―ungrateful brute‖ (Emily Bronte, 116) and
Heathcliff loves his ―murderer‖ (ibid) while mocking the love of ―chivalrous
devotion‖ (156). In place of requiting love by kisses, Catherine talks of
―revenge‖ (116). In protesting against his unre quited love and unanswered
―affectations‖, Linton Heathcliff pleas Catherine Linton: ―Hate my father, and
spare me for contempt‖ (274).
Ironically, just as his love utterances are hellish and infernal, the
melancholic drama of Heathcliff‘s death and his su bsequent planned burial
ceremony is phrased heavenly. He details the fashion he likes to be buried to

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Mrs. Deans and ends with ―No minister need come; nor need anything be said
over me. – I tell you I have nearly attained MY heaven; and that of others is
altogether unvalued and uncovered by me‖ (345). He is tranquil only after his
dream of his ―last sleep by that sleeper [i.e. Catherine]‖ when his ―heart
stopped‖ and his ―cheek frozen against hers‖ (297). It is like a marriage scene
rather than a burial sol emn ceremony.
Though in a different context, death holds happiness for other
characters. Isabella‘s ―single pleasure … is to die, or to see him [Heathcliff]
dead!‖ (157). The conflicting characters in Wuthering Heights share the only
passion of savouring the loveliness of death.
The expressed hyperbolic passions would also fall in this discussion
of examples violating the common everyday speech. Heathcliff boasts that
Edgar Linton could not love Catherine in ―eighty years as [he] could in a day‖
(154). Th ere is also his showering Catherine in five minutes with ―more kisses
than ever he [Linton] gave in his life before‖ (163).
The love scenes and exchanges in Jane Eyre share with those in
Wuthering Heights their hyperbolism. The language is anything but pla in. The
exchanges are poetically phrased. Rochester assures Jane ―I had fastened the
door – I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I
had left a lamb – my pet lamb – so near a wolf's den, unguarded‖ (232). In
the orchard w here they profess their love, there are plenty of examples. For
example, Jane excitedly asks Rochester: ―Shall I travel? – and with you, sir?‖
His reply is decked with romantic diction choices (emphasised): ―You shall
sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: a t Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the

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ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: wherever I stamped
my hoof , your sylph's foot shall step also.‖ (280). Rochester‘s manly weapon of
―storm[ing]‖ is answered by Jane‘s womanly ―art of weeping‖ ( 329). Such
exchanges would need nothing more than metre to be poetry. Love exchanges
are usually figurative but not highly, sophisticatedly poetical. So is Rochester‘s
improvised narration the night he discovered the infidelity of his mistress (and
Adele‘s mother) Celina Varens, a French opera -dancer:
I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir;
happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence … a
sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, t han
an odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of
conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself
to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight
and gaslight besides, and very still and ser ene (150).
In Agnes Grey , Anne Bronte sacrificed ornamented speech for plain
truth; and entertainment for instruction. Agnes Grey‘s plain prayer to be Mrs.
Watson, her questioning His justice, her inability to submit to His will when
opposed to her wishes, her plain words accounting for the yoke of teaching are
uttered in words that could be believed as the first impression incurred at the
moment and springing directly from the unconsciousness. The images are not
thrust upon with dry reporting words. But at the same time not exaggeratedly
processed and ornamented. It is a balance between naming things and m aking
them active and lively for artistic consideration. Discarding these ‗ornaments‘
altogether, Anne Bronte ‘s choice for a proper mode of writing would be ‗history‘

87
to document her life and experience, or theological mode to register her
conservative embracement of Christian codes. Since she ch ooses imaginative
literature, she need s observe its peculiar traditions.
In The Tenant , on the other hand, Anne B ronte‘s composition is
poetical for the most part when it comes to diction. In Chapter Two, I have
already listed the examples of weather description that seems to describe
fluctuating feelings rather than weather conditions and phenomena. Here is yet
one more example in a love scene (the love scenes are usually the real test in
regard to lexical exchang e). Helen‘s ‗proposal to Gilbert is poetic and phrased in
her favourite image of flowers. She picks a real rose and goes into detailing
how it (with double reference to the rose and to Helen herself)
is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through
hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has
sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds
have not blanc hed it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not
blighted it. Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can
be, with the cold snow even now on its petals. – Will you have it?
(435).
These examples and many others in the Brontes‘ nove ls would pose
a challenge to mat ch Wordsworth‘s call for using ‗the real language of man .‘
Abrams, however, reconciles them by suggesting that Wordsworth‘s ―chief
concern is not with the single words or the grammatical order of prose
discourse, but with fi gurative departures from literal discourse … to show that
such deviations are justifiable in verse only when they have the same

88
psychological causes that they have in the ‗artless‘ speech of every day‖
(Abrams, 110). In Abrams‘ book, there is a reference to the hypothesis
popularised by Giambattista Vico in 1725 which proposes ―that men in the first
age after the flood thought, spoke, and acted imaginatively and instinctively,
and therefore poetically; and that those early poetic expressions and activitie s
contained the seeds of all the later arts, sciences, and social institutions‖
(Abrams, 80), which means that poetical speech is the natural, spontaneous,
ordinary form of speech and the plain is, conversely, manipulated, or
‗emplained.‘
Even if one dismi sses Abrams‘ defence as guess work, or his cited
Giambattista Vico‘s hypothesis as mere hypothesis, there is still Laird‘s factual
defence that talks of ―Scientific imagination‖ (Laird, 203) which is the exact
point where Abrams and Laird meet. Abrams affi rms how metaphor ―whether
alive or moribund, is an inseparable element of all discourse. … Even the
traditional language of the natural sciences cannot claim to be totally literal‖
(Abrams, 31). Moreover, ―whether poets or speakers in prose, we cannot
discuss the activities of mind without metaphor‖ (Abrams, 53).
The problem reconciled thus would eradicate any solid distinction
between Realism and Romanticism. Both use the ‗language of man‘, a natural
part of which, it is agreed, is figures of speech. I s uggest, however, that the
distinction in language use be viewed as a matter of matching words and their
level of sophistication and literariness with that of their utterer. To take one
example, a close examination of the words put on Helen Burns‘ tongue (i n Jane
Eyre) would hardly be called realistic. Burns, the little child, educated in a poor

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school is uttering theological wisdom phrased in poetic language. Her ‗innocent‘
questions about God are philosophical, sometimes rhetorical asked to educate
Jane.
Let us consider William‘s argument concerning the best ‗durable‘
grounds of choosing a wife for the now and the afterwards:
a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but
when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and w ood
laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember
that I had made of this my equal –nay, my idol –to know that I must
pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of
understanding what I said, of appreciating what I though t, or of
sympathizing w ith what I felt! (The Professor , Charlotte Bronte, 61).
William‘s convictions could be convincingly describe d natural, taking into
account his level of education and interest and readings in literature.
I will conclude by putting sid e by side a similar idea of unanswered
prayers phrased differently to make my suggested criterion clearer. Educated
Agnes Grey complains:
I have lived nearly three -and-twenty years, and I have suffered much,
and tasted little pleasure yet; is it likely my life all through will be so
clouded? Is it not possible that God may hear my prayers, disperse
these gloomy shadows, and grant me some beams of heaven‘s
sunshine yet? Will he entirely deny to me those blessings which are so
freely given to others, who neit her ask them nor acknowledge them

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when received? May I not still hope and trust?‖ ( Agnes Grey, Anne
Bronte, 101).
Agnes is indecisive as to whether she should ―shrink from the work
that God has set before me, because it was not fitted to my taste‖ (104). P oor
and illiterate Nancy Brown shares and complains about the disappointing
experience of unanswered prayers bur her utterances are phrased thus: ―An‘ I
even took the sacrament; but I felt as though I were eating and drinking my
own damnation all th‘ time‖ (Agnes Grey , 57).

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Chapter Four
Objectivity vs. Subjectivity
Though it might seem that the objectivity/subjectivity aspect is the
clearest touchstone and barometer for drawing the Realism/Romanticism
distinction with confidence, a close examination would reveal it is no less
elusive than the others. This state of mare‘s nest is related to that of pinning
down what counts as ‗reality‘ and ‗truth‘. Even a try for providing a
comprehensive definition of each (to be used as a solid referential criterion) is
unattainable. In the on -line Wikipedia Encyclopaedia , it is affirmed that
objectivity ―is both a central and elusive philosophical category.‖ The article
entitled ―Objectivity‖ goes on that inasmuch as ―there is no universally accepted
articulation of objec tivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively
true when its truth conditions are ‗mind -independent‘ —that is, not the result of
any judgements made by a conscious entity or subject.‖ The on -line Merriam –
Webster Dictionary defines something to be ‗objective ‘ when ―expressing or
dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal
feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.‖ These definitions, however, fall short of
ensuring a state free of inconsistencies for they canno t be conciliated with the
fact that an objectively articulated proposition could never be articulated but by
a conscious subject. This is why, according to the Wikipedia article, today‘s
scholars come to countenance that a proper understanding must lie in the
existence of ―a collective subjectivity on what we all can agree to be
independent of any one person's opinion or perspective.‖ Both parts of the

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Wikipedia definition and that of Merriam -Webster retain that objective reality is
fixed, eternal and mutua lly intelligible.
Subjectivity, on the other hand, derives from, according to the article
―Subjectivity‖ in Wikipedia Encyclopaedia , ―the subject and his or her
perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires.‖ Among the rainbow of definitions
given in the Merriam -Webster Dictionary for what is ‗subjective,‘ we find:
―characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as
independent of mind,‖ ―relating to or being experience or knowledge as
conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states,‖ ―arising out of or
identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes.‖
Personal opinions and feelings derive from perceptions and expe riences
acquired through the sense organs. Such feelings and perceptive experiences
are neither universal nor constant. Thus both the Encyclopaedia and the
Dictionary seem to suggest the fluctuating, indeterminate nature of subjective
judgments due to thei r dependence on the changing perceptions of the
different perceivers or even the same perceiver at different moments under
different conditions and circumstances.
The claims for representing reality (see Chapter 2) are equally claims
for objectivity since it is usually accepted that reality is mind -independent, both
of which are claims for Realism and realistic representations. But to disclose
reality and its objects, it must be known through perception by a subject who
would then intentionally represent th em. Even realists accept that perception is
a major step into directly observing objective reality. This intervention of
perception in perceiving, evaluating, and understanding objective reality is

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disturbing. This process of observation and representation could hardly be
called mind -independent, and less so universal. Realists seem to have
formulated an objectified definition of subjective perception to overcome this
contradiction. John Laird says ―Realists maintain that perception is the discovery
of the world independent of that perceiver‖ (Laird, 30). Practically, realists do
not explain how possible it is to be in such a unique stand they preach.
Subjectivity, in the article ―Subjectivity‖, in the Encyclopaedia , is
summarised by the concept of ‗qualia‘. Qualia are the peculiarly discerning
interpretations and renderings of a certain (also any) aspect of experience.
These renderings are unique to the subject involved in or exposed to them.
They are also only available to that subject‘s consciousness . Subjectivity is thus
the only way we have to experience the world, mathematically, scientifically or
otherwise. We share a human subjectivity, as well as individual subjectivity and
the theories and philosophies that dictate our understanding of mathematics,
science, literature and every other discipline through which we approach the
universe are all based on human or individual perceptions. Subjectivity is within
itself the only trut h despite the suspecting assumptions and negative judgments
implied in reference to ‗subjective truth.‘ The creation of philosophies is within
itself subjective, along with the concept of discovery or creation of ideas.
Usually, notions of objectivity and subjectivity are used to set the
boundaries between kinds of judgements. Prototypically, objective judgements
deal with factual empirical and mathematical matters. In contrast, subjective
judgements do with matters of value and preference, thoughts and bel iefs.
Concerning the topic of this thesis, in dealing with the matters of experience,

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which form the raw material of the Brontes‘ novels, these notions of objectivity
and subjectivity are significant. Though the causes of experience are believed
to be obje ctive and available to everyone (in the Brontes‘ case, this may include
losing two sisters to consumption; losing a brother to drugs and degradation;
governessing; wandering in the very same moors), experiences themselves are
only available to the subject (as it appears in the varying intensity with which
each of the sisters reproduces her own impressions from those identical
circumstances). This understanding contrasts with objectivity where humans
‗see‘ the universe for what it is from a standpoint free from human perception
and its influences, human cultural interventions, past experience s and
expectation s of the result.
The key concepts and notions in disc ussing objectivity and
subjectivity are representation, mind -independence, perspective (or point of
view), and truth which explain the bafflement that accompanies any attempt at
a clear -cut distinction. To take ‗truth‘ as an example, objective judgements a re
absolutely true, whereas the truth of subjective judgements is relative to the
person making the judgement. But the unavailability of a clear definition of
‗truth‘ makes such distinction into a false -friend.
To take ‗representation‘ as another example, realistic
representational schemes are classified in terms of the degree to which they
reflect a particular perspective or point of view in the literal sense that pictorial
representations represent the visual appearance of objects. On this suggestion,
pictures are the prototypically subjective representations. Objective
representations are to be defined in contrast. But I am of Grant‘s opinion in

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mistrusting this generalised usage ―which still intends by Realism the close
rendering of ordinary experience‖ (Grant, 72).
Cobley, however, believes that objective presentation for which
realist novelists strive could be achieved by presenting a heteroglossic novel
(Cobley, 104). A heteroglossic novel gives expression to many, diverse, and
overlapping ‗spectrum‘ o f voices. Moreover, these voices need to be ―verbatim
imitations of what characters said‖ (Cobley, 90). A number of other theorists
and critics agree on the importance of this ‗honest‘ multiplicity of synthesised
voices that excludes none. Gilbert and Guba r understand Realism as ―associated
with self -renunciation – seeing life from the other person‘s perspective,
appreciating the significance of what might seem trivial from a less sympathetic
point of view‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 474). Laird points out how rea lists are
obliged to follow devotedly the ―doctrine of logical pluralism‖ according to which
―there is nothing in the nature of knowledge to prevent any given judgment
from being wholly and finally true, irrespective of the conditions of existence
and of t he truth of other judgments, however closely the judgment may be
connected with these in fact‖ (Laird, 149). Wallace Stevens even believes that
reality itself is not one and ―not what it is‖, rather it ―consists of the many
realities which it can be made i nto‖ (qtd. by Grant, 18). Heteroglossism, logical
pluralism or multiplicity of voices are democratising doctrines, on the one hand,
and objectively reflect the opulent nature of reality itself, on the other.
Contrarily, the subjective ―I‖ voice of the narr ator (which is in many
senses the poet‘s surrogate) dominates the romantic narrative. Day
particularises romantics‘ ―celebration of subjectivity‖ as a ―distinctive Romantic

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innovation‖ (Day, 47). Abrams considers ―the persistent recourse to the poet to
explain the nature and criteria of poetry‖ as ―the one essential attribute which
most early nineteenth -century theories had in common‖ (Abrams, 7). Still,
others like Mme. De Stael, who was among the first to write on Romanticism
and its defining qualities an d characteristics, observes that just as the ―shading
of colour‖ and the ―habit of self -reflection developed by Christianity‖ are marks
of Romanticism, so is ―variety‖ (Beers, 143). Be it an innovation, an attribute, or
a habit, discussions of Romanticism agree on romantics‘ credence of the ―I‖ as
a preferred narrative voice.
Realism‘s democratisation of narrating voices no matter how ‗trivial‘
their views and narratives might be considered in the grand context of the
major plot extends to include, in Coble y‘s view, giving ―simple narration of
events‖ a subordinate position ―to detailed description‖ (Cobley, 115). Detail is
heteroglossic in the sense that not only people but also things receive due
attention.
Romanticism does, indeed, emphasise detail but un like the super –
ordinate position it occupies in Realism, in Romanticism it is ―not introduced for
its own sake‖ and its only value is how much ―truth to nature‖ it bears as
preached by the Pre -Rapha elite brotherhood (Beers, 289).
Realist‘s reaction against ―complexity, consciousness‖ in favour of
―simplicity and sincerity … [as] preconditions of realism‖ (Grant, 27) could be
understood in the context of objectivity‘s mind -independence. Realists try to
distance themselves from their work. Put in other word s ―the naïve realist,
guided by the light of his conscience,‖ Grant holds, ―tries to ignore the actual

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process of creation as far as possible: one senses almost a distaste at the
thought of sitting at a desk writing. But the informed realist knows he is gu ided
by the light of his mind, and so the process itself assumes a great importance
… than the eventual result‖ (Grant, 71). Though this strategy of setting
consciousness aside may really be called mind -independent, the Realism of
such realistic approach of reality has its limitations (needless to ask how could
one manage to set what they cannot control or locate aside or somewhere
else?) Grant reminds us, in addition, that ―the endless professions of ‗simplicity‘
and ‗sincerity‘ expressed goodwill but di d not provide good works‖ (Grant, 33).
Instead, Grant emphasise s intensity as that which ―qualifies the reality as real‖
(Grant, 54). Grant even emphasises two subjective qualities in seeking to
represent real (or, objective) reality: intensity (or complex ity) and perception
(i.e., by the sense organs). It is this intensity of perception that forms a
―pressure that gathers in the mind‖ to visualise what the work is describing a nd
appreciate its significance.
Anne Bronte‘s praise (by Bentley) is precisely he r ―precision of detail‖
which both Realism and Romanticism celebrate and her simplicity which
associates with Realism and more so since hers is a ―grave exact simplicity‖
(Bentley, 37). (Examples of Anne Bronte‘s precise details are to be found in
Chapter Two of this thesis, in the section entitled ‗Social reality.‘) In this
context, I find Gilbert and Gubar‘s identifying Charlotte Bronte‘s Villette with
―honesty of the dispossessed‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 474) questionable. Though a
more detailed and better d eveloped version of Charlotte Bronte‘s experience in
Brussels than The Professor , the descriptions are rather so romantic in details.

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What is more, the only voice given domina nt expression in Villette is Lucy‘s.
Emily Bronte‘s intense passions represented in her Wuthering Heights might be
seen as exaggerated but such a judgement must be care fully adopted, unless
the judge shares the same effects of long unremitting strides on desolate
moors. At least , the judge needs first to read Charlotte Bronte‘s preface to her
sister‘s (Emily‘s) novel to get some insight in the wild surroundings with which
Emily Bronte socialised intimately. (For more detailed examples regarding
description and aspects of rendered reality in the Bronte sisters ‘ novels, see
Chapter Two ).

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Chapter Five
Now and Then

In the now and then distinction, the dichotomy goes simplistically:
Romanticism interests itself in the then and Realism in the now. The interest in
the then is not merely setting the story in a past time. Rather it could also be a
devotion to and/or revival of elements peculiar to that past time. So, the
antique elements of the past are evoked for their associated meanings of
remoteness, mystery and myth, the gothic, the exotic and the sublime. All of
which serves romantics‘ es capist politics. Likewise, the interest in contemporary
settings promotes realists‘ preference of ‗showing it to know it‘. That is, realists
point at failures in front of their eyes and never escape to a remote model of
‗purity‘ to emphasise the moral, soc ial, political, etc., stains of the contemporary
fallen world in comparison. It is the flowers and snares imagery of Anne Bronte
evoked and elaborated in her well -known Preface to the second edition of The
Tenant .
This temporal -setting preference seems to be a clear area of
demarcating Romanticism and Realism by easily putting one or the other under
a pre-defined category of temporality. On the surface of it, this is true to some
extent though it will be revealed later how the nature of employing this or th at
temporal preference is, in the end, identical. The present and the past are
employed to criticise or condemn the harsh lived present.

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The 1848 – Pre- Raphaelite school which is now established as an
early stage of Romanticism is seen by Beers as ―a stern ly realistic‖ movement
and more so because it calls ―not to copy from the antique‖ (Beers, 287).
Whereas chronology is crucial in Realism, Romanticism moves backward in time
with moments of reminiscences and memories within the already past time.
Romantics not only turn their backs on chronology. In fact, in their hands, all
the dramatic unities were ―flung aside‖ and abolished as Lucas observes (Lucas,
46). The realist aims at being true to real life and so works like a historian (of
contemporary events) n ot a ‗literarian. ‘ The realistic narrative is then a
depiction or a re -presentation of actions paying ―special attention to their
sequence in time‖ (Laird, 193). That Sequence of time or chronology usually
―belongs to history and does not merely suggest it ‖ (Laird, 193). To distinguish
history from realistic narrative and show them related at the same time, Laird
preserves for ‗history‘ its title and honours realistic narrative with the title of
‗historical narrative .‘ Going in depths of his analysis will d isturb the Realism of
the now and the Romanticism of the then, however. In the first place, ―history,
before it is written, is like a jig -saw puzzle‖ lacking any apparent , evident
connection and ―where most of the pieces are missing‖ (Laird, 195). In the
second place, all the ―life of a man cannot really be pieced together, and the
life of a nation is still less tractable‖ (Laird, 195). Both lives lack neat
chronology. From these two introductions follow two conclusions. First, ―[t]he
best contemporary hist orian has to piece together what he has heard rather
than to describe what he has seen with his own eyes‖ (Laird, 194). Second,

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―contemporary narratives are not always more trustworthy than later ones‖
(Laird, 195).
The distinction between Realism and Roma nticism in this area of
temporal setting could then be the contemporary and the less contemporary
one. Realism most often connotes to the trend towards depictions of
contemporary life and society ‗as they were‘. To achieve this and in the spirit of
general Realism , realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal
activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or highly stylised
presentation. Romantics, on the ot her hand, find particular delight in the old
time and their specifically ―obvious spiritual home‖ is the Middle Ages (Lucas,
46). Henry A. Beers , in his Preface to A History of English Romanticism in the
Nineteenth Century , defines Romanticism as the ―medi aevalising literature of
the nineteenth century‖ (Beers, v). More specifically , romantics find the
mediaeval appealing in its being ―mystical, mysterious and remote‖ all which
were killed, according to the rebellious romantics ―at the Renaissance by hated
Classicism‖ (Lucas).
Another significance of Laird‘s discussion yet is that history is not
copying life and less will be ‗historical narratives‘ or literary Realism. Historians
choose and build up from their choices a historical ‗document. ‘ They construct
and arrange the chosen events into a grand historical event free of
‗irregularities.‘ No less picky are realists. The perceptible factual incidents are
made symbolic by the skilful selectivity and arrangement they undergo at the
hands of their documenter. There is no difference then if the author chooses to
piece together past or contemporary events. It is not serving other ends than

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symbolising artistically the artist‘s theme, be it ‗to escape‘ or ‗to face‘ reality.
Both reflect dissatisfaction with and re jection of the status quo.
Chronology and reminiscence just like ‗contemporarism‘ and
medievalism are artistic tools with none having an acclaimed, inherent truth
value to the time depicted. Romantics choose the past for its illustrative
representation of the sublime they value highly (or better, lament). Its
illustrativeness rather than what it illustrates is the artificiality and remoteness
from ‗real life‘. But what for does the historian (and the realist following their
fashion) choose particular incide nts except ―for their suggestiveness rather than
on their own account‖ (Laird, 210). So the boasted chronology of realists is
never attainable. If represented, the contemporary event‘s important points are
selected for symbolic (and personal) reasons. Also , a work of art does not trace
incidents making up a grand history. In ―artistic representation‖, Laird explains
―the mind lingers over the incidents without following them out [i.e. tracing
them chronologically]‖ (Laird, 210). Realists then decide on a contemporary
affair of interest and fictionalise it. Romantics do nothing otherwise. They often
choose subjects from historical periods.
Medievalism connotes beliefs and practices characteristic of the
Middle Ages . But it could also be a devotion to elements of that period which is
true of the romantic case. This allurement of the Middle Ages had spell
bounded earlier artists. Since the 18th century, a variety of movements have
used the medieval period as a fascinating model or inspiration for creative
activity, including Romanticism , the Gothic revival , the Pre-Raphaelite s.
Romanticism, in particular, has been seen as sponsoring the revival of the life

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and thought of the Middle Ages, reaching beyond rational and Classicist models
to elevate medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be
authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population
growth, urban sprawl and industrialism, embracing the exotic, unfamiliar and
distant. Medievalism, in the sense of ―the return of each country to its national
past‖, Beers believes, is the ―sing le element‖ that ―can lay claim to the leading
place‖ (Beers, vii) in the Romantic Movement. Day even makes a reference to
the term Romance which ―was, and is, a term used to describe mediaeval and
Renaissance tales … concerning knights and their chivalr ic exploits … the
fictions of the old tales, with their enchanted castles, magicians, ogres and their
representation on inflated feelings and impossible passions‖ (Day, 79). Beers
talks of ―the narrowness of [his] definition of romanticism‖ (Beers, v) bu t he
says ―romantic art usually partakes of the mysterious‖ (Beers, 137). In this
light, we could understand romantics‘ preferred subject matter and setting to
be ―remoteness … e.g. remoteness of undiscovered countries of the mind (terra
incognita of the soul)‖ (Lucas, 52). Or in Abrams‘ words , ―the far away and the
long ago‖ (qtd. by Day, 2).
The name ‗Romanticism‘ itself is derived from a popular medieval
genre: the chivalric romance . The movement contributed to the strong
influence of such romances, disproportionate to their actual appeal in medieval
literature, on the image of the Middle Ages. Romantics would thus have a
knight, a distressed damsel, and sometimes even a dragon is used to conjure
up the era pictorially. In the Brontes‘ works, there are to be found characters
modelled in the image of the medieval figures of knights and distressed damsel

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within more or less contemporary setting. In Charlotte Bronte, knigh t figures
were embodied in Rochester (in Jane Eyre ) and William (in The Professor ). A
less knightly ideal was M. Paul (in Villette ). No knightly figure is to be found in
Shirley . In Shirley , Mr. Moore was neither gentle with Caroline, nor platonic in
his paid amorous devotions to Shirley; those later devotions were fuelled by
urgent needs for immediate funds to rescue his threatened business. It is
difficult to call any of Anne Bronte‘s heroes knights in its archaic medieval
sense. More difficult it is to perceive Emily Bronte‘s beast -like Heathcliff as
gentlemanly , not to say knightly.
All of the Brontes‘ novels contain one or more distressed damsel
figure s. Charlotte Bronte creates Jane, Frances, Caroline (significantly, not
Shirley, the heroine, is the d istressed figure), and Lucy Snowe. Anne Bronte‘s
most distressed damsel is Helen, and less so is Agnes Grey. In Emily Bronte‘s
Wuthering Heights , almost all female characters are qualified nominees for the –
distressed -damsel title.
Dragons make no professed appearance. Instead there are demonic
characters, phantoms, and presences and prophetic and messenger voices
conjuring up advances in the story haunting some of their novels. Among such
dragon -like figures, we find in Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane Eyre Bertha ( with her
candles and actions of igniting fires and bring ing all into flames). Emily Bronte
even presents demonic and devil -like Heathcliff to her readers . In Anne Bronte ,
such characters with extreme tendencies to violence and harm -inflection make
no appea rance.

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Romanticism of the early nineteenth century was fostered by,
according to Romanticism‘s theorists, the past century. Abrams, in his The
Mirror and the Lamp , to understand Romanticism, emphasises more than others
―the background of eighteenth -century aesthetics from which romantic
aesthetics was in part a development, and against which it was, still more, a
deliberate reaction‖ (Abrams, Preface). Romanticism then is old in origin,
derivation, and interests. It could be another angle of viewing Bentley ‘s
emphasis o n the eighteenth -century atmosphere of Emily Bronte‘s novel
(Bentley, 33). He puts this in the context of explaining why not much of
contemporary life is to be extracted from Emily Bronte‘s novel. In the context of
this chapter, it could be un derstood as a sign of the authoress‘s romantic
escape to the past. It could be a coincidence with Abrams‘s argument perhaps
that Emily Bronte‘s chosen past was the immediate previous century.
Beers even sees no other characteristic of Romanticism than the
simple dictionary definition: ―pertaining to the style of the Christian and popular
literature of the Middle Ages‖ (Beers, Preface). But it seems that even the claim
to a neutral lexical sense is controversial and has its limitations, depending on
the cons ulted dictionary. Aidan Day , in the Introduction to his book
Romanticism , for example, commences with the definition he excerpts from the
fifth edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature where Romanticism
is defined as ―a literary movement, and profound shift in sensibility … between
1770 and 1848 … [e]motionally it expressed an extreme assertion of the self
and the value of the individual experience … together with the sense of the
infinite and the transcendental. Socially it championed pr ogressive causes …

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The stylistic keynote of Romanticism is intensity and its watch word is
‗imagination‘ ‖ (Day, 1), hardly a word of Romanticism‘s celebration of
Medievalism is to be found. Day, in addition, consults Abrams‘ A Glossary of
Literary Terms which historicises the Romantic period to start from ―the French
Revolution in 1789 … or the publication of … Lyrical Ballads in 1798 – through
the first three decades of the nineteenth century‖ (Day, 2).
Examples of Romanticism‘s fascination with the antique are plenty in
the Brontes‘ works. Not in the naive sense of the antiquity shrouding all articles
of Frances‘s ornamentless household of ―a small kettle of a very antique
pattern…. tea -tray… china tea – equipage, whose pattern, shape … size, de note
a remote antiquity; a little, old -fashioned silver spoon … silver tongs, equally
old-fashioned … silver cream -ewer, not larger than an egg -shell‖ ( The
Professor , Charlotte Bronte, 99). This romantic feature of interest in the mystic
antiquity is present in Jane Eyre . In Jane Eyre , Charlotte Bronte employs the
haunted ancestral ―gloomy mansion‖ with ―gothic trapping‖ (Gilbert and Gubar,
347) of Thornfield to examine and explore psychological significant implications
(Gilbert and Gubar, 86). In part icular, Gilbert and Gubar shed light on
Thornfield‘s third storey which ―is the most obviously emblematic quarter of
Thornfield‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 348). Indeed, the appeal of the third storey of
Thornfield Hall is how its ―relics gave … the aspect of a home of the past‖ ( Jane
Eyre,111) just as one of London‘s appealing sights in Villette , is the royal
―antique Westminster‖ (43). No less haunted is the red room of Jane Eyre with
its gothic features. So is Wildfield Hall in Anne Bronte‘s The Tenant . In He len‘s
reply to Fergus‘s question ―how you could choose such a dilapidated, rickety old

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place as this to live in. If you couldn‘t afford to occupy the whole house, and
have it mended up, why couldn't you take a neat little cottage?‖ Helen answers
with awar eness of the place‘s romantic character: ―perhaps I took a particular
fancy for this romantic, old -fashioned place‖ (2). The architecture of Wildfell
Hall is carefully detailed. The gothic and the antique is forcefull y present in the
Hall, which is
a super annuated mansion of the Elizabethan era, built of dark grey
stone, venerable and picturesque to look at, … cold and gloomy
enough to inhabit, … its too lonely, too unsheltered situation, …
Behind it lay a few desolate fields, … the gigantic warrior that stood
on one side of the gateway [leading to the Hall‘s garden], and the lion
that guarded the other, were sprouted into such fantastic shapes as
resembled nothing either in heaven or earth (14).
To Gilbert‘s ―young imagination, they presented all of them a
goblinish appearance, that harmonised well with the ghostly legions and dark
traditions … [that] had [been] told … respecting the haunted hall and its
departed occupants‖ (14/15).
Gilbert and Gubar go further when they extend the haunting
argum ent into mystifying the person of Madam Beck of Villette whom they
characterise as literally ―haunt[ing] the school in her soundless slippers‖ with
her ―face of stone‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 408) which I see to be somehow
exaggerated and twisted. Gilbert and Gubar‘s exploration of the medieval
mysticism in Wuthering Heights is more persuasive, on the other hand. All in all,
Wuthering Heights is ―a metaphysical romance‖ to the point that it inspires in

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the reader a sensation of its being at times ―about forces or beings rather than
people‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 252). Moreover, the building at the Heights is
―pathless as the kingdom of the damned,‖ and has ―billowy white ocean of cold‖
surrounding it (Gilbert and Gubar, 262). Wuthering Heights is also ―close to
being naked … its floors uncarpeted, most of its inhabitants barely literate‖
(Glibert and Gubar, 273). In her Preface to her sister‘s Wuthering Heights ,
Charlotte Bronte admits the rustic quality of the Heights . In Wuthering Heights ,
there is also the devi lish Heathcliff who is ―both demon lover and ferocious
natural force‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 253) or even ―alien and animal -like
Heathcliff‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 304), which gets us back to the dragon figure of
medieval romances. Isabella, in Wuthering Heights , wonders: ―Is Mr. Heathcliff
a man? If so, is he mad? And if not is he a devil?‖ (Emily Bronte, 141)
Moreover, ―[t]he Middle Ages, more than any other period, are rich
in instances of that intimate blending of the comic and the horrible which we
call the grotesque‖ (Beers, 219) which is a preferable romantic atmosphere.
This blend is reflected not only in places and mansions but also and perhaps
best embodied in the romantic hero where ―the union of the terrible and the
ludicrous in the same figure‖ is ac hieved (Beers, 221) as in Emily Bronte‘s
Heathcliff. There are also grotesque scenes as those invoked by Catherine,
narrating to Mrs. Dean: ―It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and
we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've br aved its ghosts
often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them
to come‖ (130). Childhood games are set in the graveyard rather than the
playground. And what game do these kids play? They challenge the dead to

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come out! Death (t he most serious of things) is turned at the hands of Emily
Bronte into a childish game.
Specifically, romantics prefer antique symbols (Lucas, 150), as said
earlier in this chapter. Rene Wellek sees that romantics ―share also a poetic
style, a use of image ry, symbolism, and myth‖ (Day, 5). Richter defines
Romanticism as that ―embodied spirit -world, as well as Greek mythology, that
spiritualized world of the body‖ (Abrams, 212). Antiquity is a rich source for
these stylistic features, hence the romantics‘ de light in the medieval. Wuthering
Heights is seen by Gilbert and Gubar ―so ambitious a myth … has the puzzling
self-containment of a mystery in the old sense of that word‖ and elaborated
more how ―locked in by Lockwood‘s uncomprehending narrative, Nelly D ean‘s
story, with its baffling duplication of names, places, events, seems endlessly to
re-enact itself like some ritual that must be cyclically repeated in order to
sustain (as well as explain) both nature and culture‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 257).
Likewise, Gilbert and Gubar point out the fairytale elements of the atmosphere
shrouding Jane‘s first meeting with Rochester. The e lements include: ―mythic
elements … icy twilight … a rising moon‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 351). Rochester
will later recall the mystery of these elements and their force over his horse. He
tells Jane that then he ―had half a mind to demand whether [Jane] had
bewitched my horse‖ ( Jane Eyre , 128). The ambiguity that surrounds the final
pages in Villette could be viewed in the same light of mystery and puzzlement.
Lucy gives misty hints as to the fate of M. Paul on his return journey from the
West Indies but leaves it to the ‗fertile‘ imagination of her readers to fancy the
end that suits them. She says that ―the three happiest years‖ of her life (431)

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were those before M. Paul's return journey, which would suggest that he did
indeed fall victim to the ―destroying angel of tempest ‖ (433).
Beers expands the past to include ―whet her the period chosen was
the middle ages or any old period B. C. or A.D‖ (Beers, 230). Put side by side,
Bentley‘s judgement that
Charlotte‘s stories … Anne‘s, belong essentially to the nineteenth
century … the century of governesses and machines and tra ins …
Emily‘s novel belongs to eighteenth century … the century of horse
transport, rough tracks, remote houses, character unsoftened by
urban contacts … in essence Emily‘s tale is timeless: a tale of
elemental, universal passions, love scorned turning into a fury of
revenge and hate (Bentley, 33),
and Beers expansion of what qualifies as past time, may justify calling Charlotte
and Anne Bronte realists and Emily romantic.
Moreover, Gilbert and Gubar argue for another sort of remoteness:
physical or spa tial. Charlotte Bronte indeed seems to call for a spatial
remoteness as a realistic form of escape. Gilbert and Gubar deduce that ―[t]rue
minds, Charlotte Bronte seems to be saying, must withdraw into a remote
forest, a wilderness even, in order to circumv ent the strictures of a hierarchal
society‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 369). So, for example, ―the house in Ferndean
where Jane and lame Rochester reunited is ―set deep in a dark forest … the
physical isolation of the lovers suggests their spiritual isolation i n a world where
such egalitarian marriages as theirs are rare, if not impossible‖ (Gilbert and
Gubar, 369). The place is also ―without artifice –‗no flowers, no garden -beds‘ –

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but it is green‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 370). Lucas talks about this romantic kind o f
remoteness and calls it ―remoteness in space‖ (Lucas, 52) and Abrams ―the far
away‖ (qtd. by Day, 2).
To conclude with, the traditional associations (not necessarily
accurate) scholars and readers of literature would usually incur when Realism
and Romant icism are brought into discussion are applicable to the now and
then distinction. It is like in the previous chapters that the truth associated with
almost everything realist and false or at best imagined with all that is romantic
is shallow and imposed. H ere, for example, depicting the contemporary is not
enough guarantee that it is copied with the accuracy of a camera eye.
Romantics withdraw backward in time just like realists get rooted in the present
for their symbolic significance. Needless to say that the realist‘s and his fellow
romantic‘s eye is the subjective eye selecting and picking up aspects of the now
or the the n and only the parts that hold a proper symbolic connotation (in its
beholder‘s eyes) at that.

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Chapter Six
Truth and Imagination
The term ‗truth‘ poses a serious problem for theorists. In a common
archaic usage it meant constancy or sincerity in action or character. Such seems
to be Abrams ‘ understanding. In The Mirror and the Lamp , Abrams points out
how ―Sincerity with persisting moral and characterological implications became
a favourite Victorian test of literary virtue‖ (Abrams, 319) which accounts for
romantics‘ departure from empirical truth.
In the contemporary context, meanings of truth are prismatic and
marked by variety. But the meanings are not an unorganised mixture. They
have something in common; namely the centrality of the concept of ‗correlation‘
in comprehending ‗truth.‘ In one sense, ‗truth‘ is perceived as a state of being
corresponding to a specific fact or reality. In another sense, it suggests a state
of being in harmony with real entities, be they events, things and/or actualities.
In a third sense yet, it connotes fidelity to an original or to a standard or some
ideal. If the hypothesis that things are defined the clearest in contrast to its
direct opposition is accepted, then truth‘s antonym is falsehood. This last
attempt is not indeed of any help. ‗Falsehood‘ is no less nebulous than ‗truth‘.
Both are judgments, subjective and cannot escape the corresponding log ical,
ethical, moral, logical and even commonsensical meanings.

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Language and words are vital tools by means of which people
impart, transmit, and convey data to or exchange it with one another. As such,
it is a must -have that truth be useful or of a rewarding use in order to be
retained within language. Truths are all -important in processes of setting plans
and predictions (like in science.) As such, the more tried -and-true a piece of
truth or data is, the more serviceable it becomes for these processes. This
understanding constitutes pragmatic criteria for recognizing what is termed
‗truth.‘
Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among
scholars and philosophers. There are many claims on such questio ns as what
makes up and identifies truth; what things are truth bearers capable of being
true or false; and whether truth is subjective , relative , objective , or absolute .
This chapter introduces various approaches, perspectives and arguments in
addressing the controversial nature of truth and that of imaginati on, as well.
More or less, most theorists resort to the contemporary spectrum of meanings
of ‗truth‘ to understand reality and truth embodiment. G. H. Lewis, one of the
first theorists of Realism believes that ―The fundamental assumption is that life,
as well as art, becomes meaningful by virtue of the emotion, refined to moral
feelings. Only art which embodies this truth can be referred to as Realist, which
is another term for truth itself‖ (qtd. by Williams, 136). Damian Grant, in
Realism , distinguishes b etween two theories approaching reality. He calls one
―the correspondence theory‖ where truth is seen as ―scientific … discovered by
a process of knowing‖ (Grant, 9). The other is ―the coherence theory‖ whose
truth is ―poetic … created by a process of maki ng‖ (ibid). Since there is no

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single accepted criterion of truth, these arguments can all be considered mere
theories .
Imagination (or, the imaging faculty), on the other hand, is the skill
(talent, gift, etc.,) of envisaging and picturing images, feelings, emotions, and
concepts mentally when they are not perceived substantially through the sense
organs here -and-now. In other words, imagination actualizes and incarnates
former experiences int o images. This mental activity is the first step towards
creation. It endows, according to its enthusiastic advocates, human experiences
with significance and helps in making sense of these experiences and the world
at large.
Via imagination, poets and fic tion writers (sometimes, ordinary
people) manage to create their own worlds and realms or what is usually
referred to as fantasy. Of course, all takes place within their individual minds.
But if it is accepted that these created realms are based on former experiences
which themselves are constituted of sense data derived from the shared world
of all people, why the imaginative realms are imaginative and created? What is
the difference between one created realm and another? Artistically, the
difference is ca lled style. Style is the peculiar fashion of saying and doing
things. In simpler terms, it could be called perspective and world view of the
person through which he or she tries to make sense of the world.
Perspective is, then, a personal explanation of th e sense data. Raw
sense data (as first perceived) is true and real. When processed by imagination,
they are imaginings, hence false. The distinction must be maintained and

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perceived as such by the person. Otherwise, the person falls victim of mental
illness (psychiatrists often attribute m ental illnesses to this failure ).
Some theorists believe there is no need for defining truth because
‗truth‘ is unknowable , in the first place . Yeats, for example, affirms that ―Man
can embody truth but he cannot know it‖ (qtd. by Grant, 55). For Grant himself,
―Reality is not knowable‖ (Grant, 55). But still Grant allows it that ―Man
embodies truth in art: which is therefore a kind of ‗knowing‘,‖ and he reconcile s
the two views by emphasizing that it is ―not an abstract or scientific knowing
but an act , an affirmation; the kind of knowing that expresses itself not in
description, repetition , or imitation, but in making, making new‖ (Grant, 55).
This distinction between two kinds of truths, of realities, of knowing seems a n
acceptable way for compromising and a recurrent one. Beers holds that ―All
romanticists are resurrectionists; their art is an elaborate make -believe‖ (Beers,
2). Therefore it is enough for their purpose if the world which they re -create
has the look of r eality, the verisimile if not the verum‖ (Beers, 2). Beers‘
understanding seems what Gilbert and Gubar found to be Emily Bronte‘s
Wuthering Heights ‘ praise. It is the ―paradoxically matter -of-fact imaginative
strength, her ability to enter a realistically freckled fantasy land‖ (Gilbert and
Gubar, 257). The matter -of-fact imaginative world is achieved, Gilbert and
Gubar note brilliantly, through cladding the fairy -tale events with ―a local
habitation and a real chronology in just that historical present Eli ade defines as
great time‘s opposite‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 259). Emily Bronte‘s realistic fairy
tale embodies also Grant‘s theory of intensity of perception (Grant, 54). Since
for Grant ―truth may be made not found, made ‗as diamond is made, out of

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inferior elements‘‖, intensity of perception is important since it is the ―pressure
that gathers in the mind‖ (Grant, 57) and qualifies reality as true.
But intensity is as crucial for the truth realists seek to embody and
represent as for Romanticism whose ―sty listic keynote … is intensity and its
watch word is ‗imagination‘‖ (Day, 1). The two features of intensity and
imagination are best rendered by Charlotte Bronte. Shirley‘s Romanticism is
most vivid in her response to Caroline‘s inquiry of: ―I suppose you expect to see
mermaids, Shirley?‖ Not only does Shirley positively believe in mermaids,
themselves offspring of romantic worlds and figments of imagination, but also
offers an intensely detailed account of the dreamy circumstances making up the
scene when she is to meet one of them (mermaids) including the moon stage
at that night, the river surface and many other detail s. Shirley‘s account goes
(details are not emphasised in the original text):
One of them…she is to appear in some such fashion as this. I am to
be walking by myself on deck, rather late of an August evening,
watching and being watched by a full harvest -moon: something is to
rise white on the surface of the sea, over which that moon mounts
silent, and hangs glorious: the object glitters and sinks. It rises again.
I think I hear it cry with an articulate voice: I call you [Caroline] up
from the dim wave… it glides nearer: a human face is plainly visible; a
face in the style of yours, whose straight, pure… lineaments, paleness
does not dis figure. It looks at us, but not with your eyes… Were we
men, we should spring at the sign, the cold willow would be dared for
the sake of colder enchantress; being women, we stand safe, though

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not dreadless…. she cannot charm … Are you not glad, Caro line, when
at last, and with a wild shriek, she dives? ( 153)
Shirley‘s mermaids are reflective of Romantics‘ delight in the
supernatural, which is imaginative and could hardly be real, true, or derived
from sense data. Abrams locates the origin of this del ight in eighteenth -century
―Christian supernatural,‖ which was exclusively allowed in poetry and Abrams
notes that ―some critics justifies pagan marvels as essential to the epic poem
for the effects of ‗astonishment‘ and ‗admiration‘ which were its indispe nsible
characteristics, but condemned their use in the other poetic forms‖ (Abrams,
269). Abrams shows, however, that still ―Other writers refused to allow any
exception whatever from the criterion of truth to the actual world‖ (ibid).
Abrams‘s stand is th at the poem aspires to achieve ―the duality of means
(imitation) and end (pleasure)‖ whereby ―truth constitutes the basic subject
matter, but myth and other literal impossibilities are necessary to embellish
truth and rescue it from languor‖ (ibid). More t o this point is that ―the poetic
supernatural does not imitate God‘s created nature, but constitutes a second,
super -nature created by the poet himself‖ (Abrams, 274). Ironically, then, ―The
poet‘s creativity resides peculiarly in his non -realistic inventi ons‖ (Abrams, 275).
Romanticism liberates truth and reality whereby ―Poetic probability has been
freed from all reference to outer reality and made entirely a matter of inner
coherence and non -contradiction. And by the severance of the poetic universe,
from the empirical universe, we achieve the logical distinction between two
kinds, or ‗universes,‘ of truth –‖ (Abrams, 278). It is the archaic truth criterion

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of consistency. Abrams goes on listing four theories accounting for the
peculiarity of poetic truth :
(1) Poetry is true in that it corresponds to a reality transcending the
world of sense … (2) Poetry is true in that poems exist, are very
valuable, and are the product and cause of actual emotional and
imaginative experiences … (3) … it correspond s to objects which
contain, or have been altered by, the feelings and imagination of the
observer … (4) … it corresponds to concrete experience and integral
objects, from which science abstracts qualities for purposes of
classification and generalization … (5) … it corresponds to the poet‘ s
state of mind: it is ‗sincere ‘‖ (Abrams, 313 -317).
In fact, appealing to the empirical outer universe for judging would
not underestimate or violate the truth of the supernatural since Abrams‘s
universe includes ―pe ople and actions, ideas and feelings, material things and
events, or super -sensible essences ‖ (Abrams, 6) . Indeed , for him , ―Even taste
… no less than reason, is an organ for perceiving truth‖ (Abrams, 263).
Another theory, still, offers no compromise wh ile nonessential. This
theory suggests that poetry ―is neither true nor false, because, as the
expression of feeling, it proffers no assertions about reality and is therefore
outside the jurisdiction of the criterion of truth‖ altogether (Abrams, 320). In
this theory, poetry ―merely presents an object for aesthetic contemplation‖
(Abrams, 321).

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Abrams‘ universe‘s ―super -sensible essences‖ falls out of the scope of
reason and reasoning. Only Romantics‘ celebrated imagination would suffice to
attain these ess ences. Romantics believe in the mental faculty of imagination
which enables the mind ―to see through the forms of the material world to a
greater, spiritual reality behind it‖ (Day, 57). The traditionally erected
boundaries separating imagination and reaso n into different realms collapsed as
Charlotte Bronte‘s Lucy Snowe, in Villette , sees. What is called Reason, Lucy
realises is ―really repressive witchcraft or image magic that would transform her
into a nun‖ (Gilbert and Gubar, 436). Moreover, Lucy learns ―that imaginative
‗projection‘ and reasoned ‗apprehension‘ of the ‗truth‘ are inseparable. The
mirror does not reflect reality; it creates it by interpreting it‖ (Gilbert and Gubar,
437).
The narrator of Villette celebrates a very romantic key term:
imagination, and in the fashion of romantics‘ giving it superiority over reason.
Reason ―might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush
from under her rod‖ only to ―give a truant hour to Imagination —her soft, bright
foe, our sweet Hel p, our divine Hope‖ (199). Imagination is ―that kinder Power
who holds my secret and sworn allegiance‖ (ibid). Reason, conversely, is ―a
step mother‖ obeyed out ―of fear, not of love‖ (ibid). Lucy connects the key
term of imagination with another essential romantic term: fancy. This coupling
is portrayed thus: ―when imagination once runs riot where do we stop? What
winter tree so bare and branchless – what way -side, hedge -munching animal so
humble, that Fancy, a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, wil l not
clothe it in spirituality, and make of it a phantom? ‖ (283). Lucy Snowe pays

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homage to one of the distinguished romantic figures : Schiller. She expresses
the joy felt in a book of Ballads by Schiller which they used in studying German
(266).
Reason gets romanticised, however. It gets a stealthy shape like
presences and phantoms. It comes to Luccy ―through the twilight of that long,
dim chamber [and] whispered sedately‖ (198). Reason‘s whispers warn against:
―Hope [of] delight of heart … indulgence of intellect‖ (ibid). Heart and mind are
equal sources of threat to be avoided, though traditionally, one is assigned to
Romanticism, the other to Realism, respectively. Reason is bewildering and
keeps Lucy in an unresolved confusion. She cries out: ―But i f I feel, may I
_never_ express?‖ And ―Never!‖ Reason replies (198/199).
Realists, surprisingly, learnt from romantic poets, Ioan Williams
proposes, ―that the imagination was the only means of apprehending reality
and came to think that individual happines s and understanding were to be
achieved through the fullest development of the human faculties rather than
their subordination to the convenience of society and the advantages of
civilization as a whole.‖
In the light of allying Reason with truth and Imag ination with
falsehood, it could be understood why the Romanticism/ Realism division is
established in terms of the media proper for each. Realism‘s being the novel.
Romanticism‘s is poetry. This correlation is clear for Caroline (or her authoress‘s
surrog ate). Caroline educates Shirley into the nature of these two literary kinds.
Poetry‘s domain of concern is ―to allay emotions when their strength threatens

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harm‖ ( Shirley , 140). It is no medium, Caroline goes on, for those who wish ―to
exhibit intellect or attainment‖ nor a place for those in search of ―learning‖ and
―fine words‖ (140/141). It is the art of subjective expression which have but
few true readers who, as Shirley says: ―have the right taste in poetry: the right
sense of discriminating between w hat is real and what is false‖ (139). The poet
will be later characterise d, as one who composes by borrowing from
―imagination what reality will not give‖ ( Shirley , 188). The narrator joins with
the two stern dreamers, Caroline and Shirley, in elevating im agination and
imaginative poetry and declares the poet ―is not one whit to be pitied, and is
apt to laugh in his sleeves when any misguided sympathiser whins over his
wrongs‖ (30).
Aidan Day, however, correlates the romantics‘ belief in ―an ultimate
correlation between the individual mind and the mind of the absolute‖ to their
celebration of the imagining faculty through which the individual could attain
the knowledge of and insight in the absolute (Day, 59). Realism , too, finds
imagination a beneficial me ans but to achieve a quite different end . Realist
beliefs are expressed in the popular imaginative literary genre of novel, which is
most suitable to market their model and approach to life in an appealing
fashion. Apart from this functionality of imaginat ive channels of expression, ―the
most significant element in the uncertain fabric of realist theory … is its habitual
suspicion of the imagination‖ (Grant, 29). Realist s were furious and impatient
with ―the lies and dreams of the romantics and the promul gation of a reductive
aesthetic‖ (Grant, 29). How to re concile this paradox of realist s‘ employing and
investing imaginative tools with their mistrust of imagination? This is a serious

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issue in the literature attempting at a comprehensive understanding of Realism
and what counts as realistic. Laird, indeed, affirms that no meaningful account
of Realism could be achieved unless it addresses and decides on ―whether or
not realism may include imagination‖ (Laird, 204). Otherwise, i t will ever remain
an open qu estion, I believe. The theoretical resources I managed to read so far
adopt one of two opposing answers. Flaubert offers one theory that ―interprets
the artistic imagination most realistically, taking it to be a piercing of the veil
and the discovery of tr uth in its essence‖ (Laird, 204). Meredith, on the other
hand ―either denies that realism can be imaginative or else allows it a
pedestrian imagination only‖ (Laird, 205).
My view of this matter is that realists, especially in later stages, came
to underst and that their imagination -less art hardly could be called art.
Romantics arrive at a different conclusion; that their art is decked with
imaginative figments that it hardly could be said real. Realists realise first that
to produce realistic art it must b e imaginative. Second that neither imaginative
worlds to be created nor imaginative beings be quickened with life in the sense
of either of them having superhuman attributes and forces. This approximates
what Laird terms scientific imagination.
In The Prof essor, Charlotte Bronte fails to embody the outlined hero
of realistic average qualities and moralities of her Preface. The failure to abide
by realistic claims is yet brought into more focus when supernatural elements
sneak up in the story. The romantics‘ invoking of mysterious presences and
mystical forces that guides the heroes and heroines, thus advancing the story,

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is present in The Professor . The recurring episodes of a spirit haunting the
school and looming in Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter‘s hallooed garden are the least
supernatural of ghosts. Though William finds it either ―supernatural‖ or
hypochondria condition (131), it proves real. It is a wicked joke woven by
malicious students. Conversely, William turns the concrete garden of Mdle.
Zoraide Reuter into a ―mysterious garden‖ and talks of ―the angels [the
pensionnate students] and their Eden‖ (42). What is more, William extends the
allegory of the Garden of Eden and talks of ―a certain walk of Mdlle Reuter‘s
garden, called ‗l‘allee defendue,‘ so named bec ause pupils were forbidden to
enter it on account of its proximi ty to the boys‘ school‖ (60/61). The forbidden
walk conjures up the forbidden tree of Eden.
It is not restricted to The Professor this conversion of trut h or reality
and imagination. L ike the romantic spir its of Bessie‘s bedtime stories are the
‗spirits‘ that haunt and pay regular visits to Jane in Thornfield. Upon her return
from the Reed‘s at G ateshead to Thornfield, Rochester doubts whether Jane is
―substance or shadow‖ (262). Jane tells how her ―chamber -door was touched;
as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery
outside‖ (156). The fingers, it will be revealed as the story progresses, belong
to Bertha not to ―Nothing‖ (ibid) (note she did not say ‗Nobody‘). The
‗mysterious‘ laughter, which Jane hears coming from a place near her room is
described: ―a laugh … a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless … It passed
off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber‖
(112). These adj ectives endow the laughter yet with more mystery. The
substantial disaster, on the other hand, of Thornfield being burned down, was

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reported in a short fairy tale. The fairy tale accounts for a ‗real‘ event. Janes
‗report‘ goes:
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he [Rochester]
wishes to catch a glimpse of her [Bertha] fair face without waking her.
He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses –
fancying she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be
seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil
rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate
the vision of beauty – warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How
hurried was their first glance! But how they fi x! How he starts! How he
suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a
moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and
drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and
gazes, because he no l onger fears to waken by any sound he can utter
– by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly:
he finds she is stone dead. I looked with timorous joy towards a
stately house [means Thornfield]: I saw a blackened ruin (461).
A duplication of the trick of a looming ghost with little more details is
present in Villette . Charlotte Bronte introduces the figure of the nun apparition
who is given the mysterious name ―the nun of the attic‖ (406) and an adjacent
myth tale to explain it. It has ―no face–no features: all below her brow was
masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me‖ (260).
Towards the end, ―The long nun proved a long bolster dressed in a long black
stole, and artfully invested with a white veil. The garments in very truth,

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strange as it may seem, were genuine nun's garments, and by some hand they
had been disposed with a view to illusion‖ (411). Full truth is revealed about
this apparition in a letter from Ginerva to Lucy after Ginerva‘s elopement with
and marria ge to de Hamal: ―Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M.
le Comte de Hamal was the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your
humble servant? … Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the
nun; that suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think
you must allow he has very cleverly carried out‖ (415).
In addition to this confusing or conversing of the real and the
romantic, there are examples of spirits and mysterious presences that were
employed in an unmistak ingly romantic fashion. Within these, fall episodes
where the course of actions and of William‘s and Frances‘ choices and decisions
are driven by ‗sounds,‘ in The Professor ; Jane‘s and Rochester‘s in Jane Eyre .
It is a whispering fairy being that ―dropped the required suggestion
on [Jane‘s] pillow‖ in one sleepless night Jane spends contemplating the
choices available for her to acquire a position. The fairy sound murmurs to
Jane: ―Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the -shire
Herald .‖ Coupled with the aspect of the ancients that shroud almost all things in
Thornfield (see Chapter Five), the voices, the mysterious laughter, and the
spirit-like visitations add a Gothic aspect to Thornfield; another of romantic
preferences.
The stronges t (perhaps the most substantial) of voices that maintain
their identity as v oices are the ‗messenger voices .‘ It is a romantic feature that

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shakes any claims to a realistic story, at least because they bring about the
solution of the plot without logical r easons. It is a whispering sound that calls
―Jane! Jane! Jane!‖ (455) and summons her to go to Rochester. Rochester,
miles away from Jane, swears he heard her replying voice assuring him: ―I am
coming: wait for me‖. Jane never doubts the possibility of the messenger voice .
She could only allow these voices being ―coincidence … too awful and
inexplicable to be communicated or discussed‖ (488) but their existence is out
of question .
Even in the most realistic novel by Charlotte Bronte, Shirley , the
question of ―Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living flesh?
Can the dead at all revisit those they leave? Can they come in the elements?‖
possesses Caroline in her melodramatic meditation (262). She is willing to pray
for help of the elements of ― wind, water, fire‖ to ―lend [her] a path to Moore‖
(ibid).
Lucy Snowe‘s description of the house of Madame Walravens, in
Villette , is a mixture of the gothic, the mysterious and the fairy elements that
stamped the house‘s architecture, furniture, and its d weller. In that ―desolate,‖
house, the visitor encounters ―a fine old ceiling,‖ ―church -like windows of
coloured -glass‖ (339). It is buried in ―deep gloom‖ through which ―few details
of furniture were apparent‖ (ibid). On one wall hanged a picture that ―sh ook …
sunk … rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening arched‖ (ibid).
That opening is ―leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair;
both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted‖ (ibid).

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The house i s surrounded by ―the three towers, overlooking it, own for
godfathers three mystic sages of a dead and dark art‖ (340). The place is, all in
all, called ―elf -land‖ and ―parts of a fairy tale‖ (ibid). Inside, appears a
―sorceress‖ whose first appearance too k the identity of ―a shadow,‖ gradually
developed into ―a substance‖ and, in the end , introduced with the established
identity of ―Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy‖ (ibid). Lucy,
despite the unmistakable identity of the lady present befor e her eyes, insists
that Madame Walravens ―had no shape‖ (ibid). She grants the lady reluctantly
substantial existence but denies her shape.
Emily Bronte‘s masterpiece of Wuthering Heights , is easily
categorised as a fairy tale. Soon after the principle ch aracters are introduced to
the readers followed an intense moment of Mr. Lockwood‘s superstitious
encounter with the phantom of Catherine. Lockwood tells:
The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by
me when awake, but forgotten. ‗I m ust stop it, nevertheless!‘ I
muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an
arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers
closed on the fingers of a little, ice -cold hand! The intense horror of
nightmare came o ver me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand
clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‗Let me in – let me
in!‘ ‗Who are you?‘ I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage
myself. 'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly … As it spoke, I
discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror
made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature

128
off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro
till the blood ran down and soaked the bed clothes: still it wailed, 'Let
me in!' and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with
fear (25).
Note the use of the inanimate pronoun to refer to Catherine (or ―the
creature‖) to highlight its non -human presence.
The phantom reappears moment s afterwards. This second
appearance is reported too by Mr. Lockwood:
I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition
on the part of my landlord [Heathcliff] which belied, oddly, his
apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenc hed open the lattice,
bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.
'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, do – ONCE more!
Oh! My heart's darling! Hear me THIS time, Catherine, at last!' The
spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being;
but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my
station , and blowing out the light (28 ).
This appearance of Catherine‘s phantom is unquestionably accepted
by other characters as real. It excites cu riosity on Lockwood‘s part and provides
a ‗proper‘ background for Mr. Dean to commence her tale.
The story will end but the phantoms will survive as implied in the
gossip of villagers continuing to see Heathcliff‘s and Catherine‘s ghosts.

129
Anne Bronte has n o place in this part that investigates imagination
and its offspring of fairy lands, ghosts etc., just as her younger sister Emily has
none in the section (in Chapter Two) tracing social reality.

130

Conclusion
―Romanticism is only partly opposed to Realism‖ F. L. Lucas
announces. So is the conclusion of this study. On the surface, Realism and
Romanticism seem like opposites. Going in details, however, would reveal the
difference is ‗partial.‘
The surface level shows Romanticism with dreamy worlds, dreaming
characters, remote settings (mostly medieval). Realism, on the other hand, is
‗earthly.‘ It interests itself in the surrounding society and social community;
contemporary, everyday life; and its crises. Chronologically put, ―Classicism had
given way before Romanticism … Romanticism in turn was yielding to realism.
Realism sets itself against that desire of escape from actual conditions into an
ideal world, which is a note of the romantic spirit in general; and consequently
it refuses to find the past any more interesting than the present, and has no
use for the Middle Ages‖ (Beers, 396).
The deep level unveils another nature. Romanticism‘s monopoly of
the mystical, psychological, imaginative questions as its peculiar features, and
Realism‘s of the concrete , ‗real,‘ social, realistic (or, ‗truthful‘) are not bred -in-
the-bone. The Bronte sisters ‘ novels test to the instability of claimed hard -core
nature of Realism‘s and Romanticism‘s distinctively peculiar features. It turns
out that reality and its depictio n is the end of both. The three explored aspects
of reality (social, material, and psychological) are found in all of the novels;
those classified romantic and those realistic alike. Both movements share

131
subjectivity as the stand of their adherents for obj ectivity is out of the reach of
subjects (i.e. authors , in this case ). Both are imaginative, at least, so far as the
authors choose imaginative literature and literary language as the medium of
expression.
The difference could be said to be one of proporti on and space
distribution. How much space is given to one aspect or the other? The
psychological occupies more space of the romantic manuscripts; the social and
the material in realistic ones. Nevertheless, the social and the material are
present in romant ic literature as is the psychological in realistic literature. The
social and the material are manipulated in Romanticism to quench the
psychological‘s thirst for a better reality (termed ‗ideal‘, and in extreme cases,
‗Utopian‘). The social and the materi al, in Realism, accounts for the traumatic,
disturbed psychological, on the other hand. It is the difference between
romantic pathetic fallacy and realistic Naturalism.
Where does the partial difference exist, then? Drawing on the
arguments of this thesis, temporal settings is the feature that retains its
peculiar character. However, not in the sense of the romantic ancient/medieval
and the realistic contemporary. Romantics find appealing the mystic, remote,
gothic and mysterious of medieval era, not necess arily its being ancient. Emily
Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights is only one century prior to her time. Charlotte
Bronte‘s Jane Eyre and Villette (traditionally perceived as romantic) are set
within contemporary time. Indeed, Charlotte Bronte‘s Shirley , which is

132
categorised realistic and an important social novel, is set in a time period
farther than Jane Eyre or Villette .
To conclude with, the traditional categorising of the Bronte sisters‘
novels is not reversed by this study. Rather they have been established
according to a different understanding of Realism and Romanticism. This
understanding sets two criteria for categorising. One is the space distribution
due to the social, material, and psychological realities, in place of limiting one
aspect of reality as p roper for one movement (psychological -Romanticism;
social and material -Realism). The second criterion is that of setting. Not in the
sense of literally romantic ancient (specifically, medieval) as opposed to realistic
present or contemporary, however. The criterion gets a small but significant
modification. Romantics depict medieval elements (conceptual and abstract)
more than literal ‗past medieval time.‘

133

English Résumé
The thesis traces the romantic and the realistic elements in the
Bronte sisters‘ nove ls. It is divided into six chapters; each analyses one
element.
Chapter One sets a background for the thesis topic. It analyses the
prefaces of the Brontes‘ novels where they claim their novels are derived from
reality, hence realistic.
Chapter Two is the longest for it addresses a central point; that of
reality. In its own turn, this chapter is divided into four sections for ease of
treatment and investigation. The sections are: Social Reality; Material Reality;
Psychological Reality, and Integrating Reali ties.
Chapter Three discusses character portrayal and language
reproduction in fictitious literature. The chapter tries to see how theorists
reconcile the ‗real‘ plain speech of the layperson and the language of novels
decked with figures of speech.
Chapte r Four marks the move in this thesis to more abstract
concepts of Realism and Romanticism. It deals with objectivity and subjectivity:
their definitions and attainment.
Chapter Five takes the contemporary vs. medieval temporal settings
as its theme.

134
Finally, Chapter Six discusses truth and imagination; usually
associated with Realism and Romanticism; respectively.
The thesis couples theory with practice. It examines the fictitious
realistic and roma ntic literature of the Brontes and the theoretical literatu re of
both literary move ments: Realism and Romanticism, too.

135

Czech Résumé – české resumé
Tato práce sleduje romantické a realistické prvky v románech sester
Bronteových. Je rozdělena do šesti kapitol, z nichž každá analyzuje jeden prvek.
Kapitola první v ykresluje pozadí tématu disertační práce. Analyzuje
předmluvy románů Bronteových, kde tvrdí, že jejich romány vycházejí z reality,
z toho důvodu jde o romány realistické.
Druhá kapitola je nejdelší, protože řeší ústřední bod disertační práce
– realitu. Tato kapitola je rozdělena do čtyř částí pro snadnou orientaci a
zkoumání . Části kapitoly jsou: sociální realita, hmotná realita, psychologická
realita, integrovaná realita.
Třetí kapitola se zabývá charakterem zobrazení a jazykové
reprodukce fiktivní litera tury. Tato kapitola se snaží zjistit, jak skloubí teoretici
‗skutečný‗ prostý projev laika a jazyk románů ozdobený řečnickými figurami.
Kapitola čtvrtá znamená posun této diplomové práce směrem k
abstraktnějšímu pojetí realismu a romantismu. Zabývá se obje ktivitou a
subjektivitou: jejich definicí a dosažením.
Kapitola pátá si bere za téma srovnání současného a středověkého
časového zasazení .
A konečně kapitola šestá pojednává o pravdě a představách, obvykle
spojovaných s realismem, respektive romantismem.

136
Disertační práce spojuje teorii s praxí. Zkoumá fiktivní realistickou a
romantickou literaturu sester Broenteových, a také teoretickou literaturu obou
literárních hnutí: realismus a romantismus.

137

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