The Brontë Sisters: Feminist Trailblazers?

2014 was a year of feminism – from Emma Watson’s HeForShe speech at the UN, to Malala Yousafzai's winning the Nobel Peace Prize, to the #YesAllWomen trend that set the Twittersphere on fire. With ever more people embracing ‘the radical notion that women are people,’ 2015 promises to once more bring the issue of gender equality to the fore.

So where do the Brontës come in? Well, while the sisters weren’t dying their underarm hair turquoise or tweeting against misogyny, modern feminists might find a surprising amount in common with the sentiments of the literary trio.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë grew up in Yorkshire in the early 19th century. Middle-class women were then expected to marry well, reproduce, and oversee the household and their progeny – all while sitting primly in corseted subservience. Intellectual and physical pursuits were deemed the preserve of men, as were strong emotions and passions. For the Brontës, writing provided a release from this stifling environment, as the independent heroines of their novels resisted or succumbed to passions and fought to control their own destinies.

Such was sexism ingrained in the 19th-century publishing industry that all three women wrote under male pseudonyms – as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, respectively – to increase the chances of their manuscripts being published. Two centuries later, feminists are still railing against sexism in publishing, pointing out – rather accurately – that ‘women’s writing’ is not a genre.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will” – Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë created a heroine who was “poor, obscure, plain and little,” yet in possession of a steely resolve, self-respect and a strong moral compass. The character’s famous rooftop soliloquy is thought by many critics to reflect Charlotte’s own feelings on the limitation of women’s roles and her passion for equality: "Women are supposed to be very calm, generally; but women feel just as men feel … it is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for them." Brontë’s emotional outpouring excited its critics – conservative commentator Lady Eastlake condemned Jane Eyre as “the personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined spirit.” Later, Virginia Woolf wrote of Charlotte Brontë in her feminist tract A Room of One’s Own: “She is at war with her lot. How could she help but die young, cramped and thwarted?”

Later feminists found inspiration in Jane’s passion and resolve in her integrity and self-belief. Samantha Ellis, author of the wonderfully witty How to Be a Heroine, recounts arguing with her friend over “whether we'd rather be Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw. Like Kate Bush, I chose wild, free, passionate Cathy over stoic, virtuous Jane. But my friend found Cathy silly, a snob who betrays Heathcliff for Edgar and makes them all unhappy, while Jane makes her own way. As we reached the top, I had a moment of realisation: all this time I've been trying to be Cathy when I should have been trying to be Jane.”

“I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free” – Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

Catherine Earnshaw is certainly a difficult character to love – the female protagonist of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s only novel, is selfish and childish, her tragic death difficult to truly mourn. Yet while neither Catherine nor Heathcliff, her intense, brooding beloved, are particularly likeable characters, their passion is a thing of power – and at a time when female sexuality was taboo, Wuthering Heights received more than its share of censure. These days, of course, we’re far more progressive (except in the comments sections, where internet trolls blame openly sexual women for all the ills of the world). Those who haven't read the book may know Wuthering Heights better as the ethereal single which catapulted Kate Bush to fame, making her the first female singer-songwriter to achieve a UK number one. Her choice to release Wuthering Heights as her first single was in defiance of her producer’s wishes – perhaps possessed by something of the rebellious spirit of the Brontës.

In their foundational work The Madwoman in the Attic, critics Gilbert and Gubar explore Victorian literature from a feminist perspective. Their analysis of Wuthering Heights explores the notion of Heathcliff as female in terms of social power – this dark, Byronic and heroically masculine character had no status or property, and his defiance of social conventions can thus be granted new significance. From Jane Eyre they took their madwoman: Rochester’s imprisoned wife Bertha Mason, who Gilbert and Gubar argue is emblematic of Jane’s suppressed anger and sexuality; her “truest and darkest double.” They theorised that 19th-century female writers were constrained to write of women through the male-defined binaries of submissive, pure angel, or sexual, rebellious monster. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea provided yet another perspective. Her postcolonial, feminist reimagining of the life of Bertha gives voice to a character who in Jane Eyre is silenced and caricatured. The dangerous woman who is imprisoned by a compassionate husband, and whose death frees Jane and Edward to marry, is shown to be a victim of a racist, callous patriarchy. The Brontës’ novels are rich with meanings, which critics have teased apart to form new paradigms.

“I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be” – Anne Brontë, Author’s Preface, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

We come to Anne Brontë last, as so many have. The youngest of the three has been somewhat eclipsed by her more celebrated sisters, but may be considered the most radical of the Brontës by her refusal to valorise violence or to unequivocally endorse the state of matrimony. Helen Graham, heroine of Anne’s second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, leaves her alcoholic adulterous husband to bring up her child alone, supporting them both through her talent of painting. In doing so, the character not only defies social convention, but breaks contemporary English law. The Brontë sisters’ only brother, Branwell, was a violent alcoholic, yet while Charlotte and Emily glossed over the brutality of their Byronic heroes and offered them redemption, Anne’s work explored the devastating consequences of alcoholism. Contemporaneous criticism of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was mixed, with praise of its power intermingled with genteel horror at its coarseness. It has since been considered by many critics to be one of the first sustained feminist novels.

Over the years, many have embraced the Brontës as proto-feminists – citing their portrayals of women’s experience in a flawed patriarchal society. Yet while the sisters’ novels can be seen as critiquing society’s treatment of women, Brontë scholar RB Martin once observed that there is no hint in Jane Eyre “of any desire for political, legal, educational, or even intellectual equality between the sexes" – a claim applicable to the other Brontës’ works. However, in their literary defiance of social convention, in their acknowledgement of women’s passion and sexuality, and in the independent heroines who forge their own destinies, the modern feminist might find much to admire.