The Outward Female Vision: The Struggle Against Enclosure in the Novels of Charlotte Bronte

Date
2014-01-15
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Kon, Sheree
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Canham, Stephen
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English
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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The good of Villette in my opinion Miss is a very fine style; and a remarkably happy way (which few female authors possess) of carrying a metaphor logically through to its conclusion. And it amuses me to read the author’s naive confession of being in love with 2 men at the same time; and her readiness to fall in love at any time.l So begins William Makepeace Thackeray’s letter about Villette and its author Charlotte Bronte (1816-55), "the poor little woman of genius," "the fiery little eager brave tremulous homely-faced creature."2 While Thackeray twice praises Bronte for her style and an enjoyable novel in his responses to Jane Eyre3 and Villette, in his later review he assumes a more condescending, paternalistic tone. Although in 1847 he correctly identifies the author of Jane Eyre as a woman, he does not center his assessment of the novel on her female nature. But in speaking of Villette to Lucy Baxter in 1853, Thackeray notes that he "can read a great deal of [Bronte's] life in her book, and see [s] that rather than have fame, rather than any other earthly good . . . she wants some Tomkins or another to love her and be in love with."
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67 pages
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