bronte is personal, as in, "now you're getting personal!" (THE LIBRARY message #1340)

bronte is personal, as in, "now you're getting personal!"

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Posted by greg on September 24, 1997 at 03:40:52:

In response to Can't but think of Oliver in the workhouse, written by Amy on September 24, 1997 at 01:19:52

It's almost impossible to read about little Jane at Lowood without thinking of Dickens.

] I haven't read a life of Charlotte, so I don't know if she was political (but my guess would be she was not). Her depiction of the institution's conditions don't feel as much like a a crusade as Dickens'. She seems to be playing our heartstrings for sheer pathos; his sentimentality and treatment of poverty and injustice feel more like they have the agenda behind them that they did.

jane eyre's(and bronte's real life) situation seems unbelievably horrible in a sense, and yet it is transformed into something uniquely human that we can identify with. the human condition IS incredibly horrible at times, and no one can escape that. i guess part of the power of c. bronte's novels is that polarity of great love coming out of great pain, the one being even more striking because of the contrast of the other.
as far as politics-per-se, i don't think she was "political". she was interested in the personal response to real life. but her ideas were, and i think still are, radical, because of her uncompromising honesty in exposing our humanity.

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