Kathy Hamilton There are some authors you read for the first time and understand that a lifelong relationship has begun. A kindred spirit is recognised amidst the pages of their work. Today, I’d like to share one of those authors; here’s why I love Anne Bronte.
As a teenager, I was a desperate consumer of books. I prided myself on being able to inhale them in a single sitting. Often reading into darkness because I was to reluctant to leave my pages behind to turn on a light (It should come as a surprise to no one that I need glasses).
Reading was more than a pastime, it was a safety net; carrying me through the precarious adolescent years. The idea that you might spend time contemplating and slowly discovering a novel was foreign to me. That is until I discovered, in quick succession, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell and The Brontes. It was these authors that showed me reading could me more than a quick win.
A Quiet, Persistent Voice
I think most fans of the Bronte sisters have a favourite. Even when they don’t admit it. Passionate Jane, Independent Emily or Quiet Anne. For me, instantly, it was Anne’s voice that shone through. The first time I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I felt that Anne had more to say than she was given credit for. In Helen, I recognised a woman who was unprepared to adhere to society’s expectations when they threatened her personal beliefs. When I read Agnes Grey, this suspicion was confirmed.
Anne Bronte had a message to every woman, I felt. That it is better to live a life outside of acceptance rather than compromise what we feel to be right. Better to work for a pittance than be reliant on someone else. Better to be ostracised than be included for the wrong reasons. For a teenager trying to work out what she wanted from life, that was some powerful stuff.
“Wildfell Hall it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve…”
The more I read, and re-read, Anne’s works the more I recognised her genius. She’s transgressive, proto-feminist even. Anne was the first to complete a novel. She was the only sister who stayed employed against the odds. Her protagonists support themselves, leave situations that are unhealthy, and do so supported by the power of unwavering faith. In a time when the expectations were that a woman would marry and when divorce was unacceptable, she argued that staying in a bad marriage was worse. For context, in 1848, this wasn’t just unusual for a woman; it was illegal.
In short, she expects her protagonists to think for themselves. She asks big questions like: how can you search for empowerment when the world is cruel and unfair, and the odds are stacked against you? Additionally, the men who earn her heroines love are, shockingly, nice to women. In fact, she argued that women should steer clear of tortured and destructive men, the kind her sisters are turned into heroes. Her message: you cannot change them, you cannot redeem them.
So it came as a shock to me that these powerful themes in Anne Bronte’s writing were not recognised. Even her own sister believed her work should be suppressed after her death. She went too far, Charlotte said, she did not mean what she wrote. It’s hard to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall now and believe that this was the book that shocked Victorian Moralists. Not Wuthering Heights.
Reclaiming Anne Bronte
I have often wondered what prompted Charlotte to suppress Anne’s most powerful novel. Jealousy? Perhaps. After all, Anne wrote Agnes Grey, a novel about a plain, unlovable governess, first. Sound familiar? Or perhaps it was disregard. It is well documented that Charlotte, the eldest surviving sister, underestimated and discredited her youngest sister.
Whatever the reason, it is because of Charlotte that Anne’s best novel languished in obscurity for centuries. Had Anne lived she could have better protected her legacy; as she did in her powerful preface to the second edition. Of course, that was not the case and Anne has forever been cast as The lesser Bronte.
I believe the tide is turning. In 2020, exactly 200 years after Anne Bronte’s birth she is finally being rediscovered. The long shadow of her sister’s censure is lifting and critics are starting to look with fresh eyes and appreciation on the stark honesty and realism of Anne Bronte’s work. Her novels feel stark and fresh. Her messages of resilience against the odds, ever necessary to the world.
I love Anne Bronte because she is powerful, insightful and the bravest of her sisters. I find it fitting that her novels about quiet, unobtrusive independence are at last being recognised. She would have liked that, I think.
