I spent several years reading the work of and studying the life of the Brontës. I was inspired to do so by my former mother-in-law, who grew up in a Jewish anarchists co-op, in NYC, (“the Coops” she called it). She directed me to many women writers, whose lives were lived with great strength. Emma Goldman inspired her mostly, but left me cold.
Charlotte Brontë was a practical sort, and if it was not for her, the Brontë writers would not be known, (although in order to be published they had to pretend to be male writers..). It was fitting that Charlotte died the year after she married, very late, to someone rigid and without voice. She died from dehydration, from vomiting during morning sickness. It was as if her body revolted it’s implant from someone who she should never have chosen to marry, and it took her life. It was her fatal mistake. Charlotte’s writing was all desire, coating, and observation. There is much to recommend it, but it did not have the depth of Emily’s, and she knew it.
Emily’s Wuthering Heights was met with horror by many readers, and many felt that it had been written by a man, as no woman could write write something so raw. After her sisters’ deaths,Charlotte caved from the pressure and edited a second edition with a prefatory commentary aimed at correcting what she saw as the reviewers’ misunderstanding of Wuthering Heights. This showed both Chalotte‘s pragmatism and her weakness.
Emily was singular, except for a close relationship to her brother, (perhaps too close), and nature. She was tall and thin, and refused to adopt the fashion other women chose in her day. Her arms were lanky. Where other women chose to fluff up their clothing, making it float away from their bodies, she let it fall and drape. She took long walks on the moors. One of my favorite stories she told, was walking one day, during a storm. She was near a bog. Lightening struck the bog, and caused a boulder to be catapulted into the sky from beneath the surface.
I also read Wuthering Heights a thousand times to see the structure beneath it. It seems to be inspired by an old English folk song, with which Emily would have been familiar. Dead Can Dance, (From the album Toward the Within, Track: I am Stretched on Your Grave), has recorded it more recently. Here is a video of Brendan Perry, from DCD, performing it live:
Emily uses a circular motif to bring the reader closer and closer to a pinnacle moment or truth she has observed. Her writing is based on the structures one finds in nature. There is one particular moment, when the night visitor is sleeping in Catherine Earnshaw’s old childhood bed, or cupboard. The childs writing is scratched into its wooden walls. A storm is blowing outside, and there is a knocking on the window. The visitor is frightened, but the knocking repeats, again and again. Finally an image of a small childs hand (Catherine Earnshaw), breaking through the glass appears, moving over and over the broken shards, bleeding, as it laments. For Emily, this image, of the separation in death, or by class, ego, or any other imagined boundaries, are crossed and bound by fragile links that never end.
Emily died, soon after the death of her brother. He was the only male heir, and their father, a minister, had placed much on his success. He was given money to go to London and study. But he was also perhaps a singular mind like Emily, failing at most of his endeavors and falling into drug and alcohol abuse. The last years of his life were spent in a daze of anger and confusion, lashing out at his father; who just stood by silently. Bramwell was most likely the inspiration for much of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. The day of his funeral at Haworth, Emily sat in the dark cold church, lowering her resistance, and soon became ill with Tuberculosis. It seemed almost to be a willed death. She would not allow herself to receive medical attention, nor help with pain.
Watching Patti Smith, reminds me of the image of Emily Brontë. I think I am drawn to her, in part because of this. Although Patti Smiths own biography is much less dramatic than that of any of the Brontës. And, her work is less substantial.
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