Voices That Challenged a Century: Female Authors of the Nineteenth Century
**if you feel the need to check my sources, i have included a list of my sources, also if you dont like this paper, i got an a on it so my…
Voices That Challenged a Century: Female Authors of the Nineteenth Century
if you feel the need to check my sources, i have included a list of my sources, also if you dont like this paper, i got an a on it so my teacher liked it and thats all i care about
The nineteenth century was a time of great change in the world. Industrialization spread throughout the world. The Civil War caused America to split in two. Imperialism made a comeback when European powers scrambled for Africa. The world experienced an influx of immigration, especially to America, leading to laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act. Gold was found in the American West, leading approximately 300,000 people to flock to California. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
It was also a golden age in the world of literature. Books were becoming dominated by romanticism, realism, and gothic fiction. There was an influx of women writing under male pseudonyms. Many books that are now considered some of the greatest of all time were written during this period, including books written by Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Louisa May Alcott.
Charlotte Brontë is best known for her book, Jane Eyre, which was published in 1847. It was considered radical at the time for the way it challenged Victorian society and gave a voice to oppressed women, as well as its portrayal of a rebellious, self-determined heroine. Brontë used the first-person to create an unusually intimate portrait of her heroine. The book blended psychological realism, gothic elements, and everyday life. Needless to say, Jane Eyre was revolutionary. Charlotte Brontë also wrote Shirley, which was published in 1849, and Villette, which was published in 1853. Both Villette and Shirley had similar themes and challenged society in the same ways as Jane Eyre.
Charlotte was born in 1816 and died in 1855. She outlived her whole family. When Charlotte was a child, her mother and two older sisters died. Her father raised Charlotte and her remaining siblings, Anne, Branwell, and Emily, with the help of her aunt. Charlotte worked as a teacher, governess, and even opened a school with her sisters that was funded by her aunt. The school ended up failing because of the remote location and poor marketing. She published a book of poems with her sisters, using male pseudonyms. They sold a total of two copies.
Charlotte outlived most of her family. Her mother died of cancer in 1821, followed by her two older sisters in 1825 of tuberculosis. Her brother died in 1848 from chronic bronchitis, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and opiate abuse, leaving behind a massive debt due to a gambling addiction. Emily died the same year from tuberculosis, and Anne died in 1849, also from tuberculosis. Charlotte outlived all her siblings and died in 1855 from complications in childbirth. Her father outlived his wife and children and died eleven years after Charlotte in 1861 due to old age. Many people felt that her tragic death was an inevitable ending to a tragic life. But, some of Charlotte’s close friends felt that Charlotte had been abused and mistreated her entire life, including bestselling novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote a biography of Charlotte, which was extremely controversial.
Emily Brontë was Charlotte’s younger sister and had a very similar life and upbringing. She is known very well for her novel, Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is an overall very pessimistic novel. There is not a single character that you can root for because all the characters are just people doing bad stuff. Britannica called it a “highly imaginative work of passion and hate set on the Yorkshire moors.” It was written in an unusual format for the time. When it was first published, critics dismissed the book as too savage, clumsy, and animal-like. But today it is considered to be one of the greatest English novels of all time. Many modern critics consider Emily to be the greatest Brontë sister. She only wrote one novel, but her poetry shows true poetic genius. In 1845, Charlotte found Emily’s poems, prompting the Brontë sisters to create a collection under male pseudonyms. The books did not sell well, but their later novels sold better.
Louisa May Alcott was not only a writer but a fighter. She is most famous for her novel, Little Women, which has inspired many remakes and spin-offs and countless other authors to create their own versions of this classic tale of 4 sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The story follows Jo March, a tomboy with her wild chestnut hair being her only beauty. Jo is a writer, Beth is a sweet, shy girl who loves music, and dies far too soon of scarlet fever. Amy dreams of being a painter in Paris and having a baby, and Meg dreams of being a mother and a wife. Louisa’s book was incredibly autobiographical. She grew up during the Civil War, and she eventually went away to become a nurse until she got typhoid from working in the hospital. She taught briefly, then became a key figure in the women’s rights movement. She attended women’s rights conventions. She donated 100 dollars to the movement, which is around $3000 in today’s money.
I remember my first experience with Little Women. Greta Gerwig’s Little Women was in theaters, the pandemic had just hit, and I was just mesmerized by the story, the dialogue, the direction, the costumes, and the score. I was in love. It soon became my favorite movie. My parents bought it for me on DVD, and it was a frequent flyer in our house. It felt like the story was mine. As I got older, I read every single version of the book, I watched the movies and TV shows, and Jo March was my best friend. Little Women quickly grew into one of the many classic novels I had read, and I loved imagining myself in different times, what it would be like to live hundreds of years ago, with high society and a world full of romanticism and unpolluted skies.
All of these women were inspirations who fought for what was right. They were all writers during a time when such a task was thought to be too straining for a woman’s mind, and their stories challenged society and changed literature forever. The nineteenth century was a time of great change, great reform, and great thinkers. Among them were Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Louisa May Alcott
Sources
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Bronte
https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/the-legacy-of-charlotte-bronte/
https://victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/lowes1.html
https://literariness.org/2019/03/25/analysis-of-charlotte-brontes-novels/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8tqY8fX0Ec
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emily-Bronte
https://www.britannica.com/place/Yorkshire-former-county-England
https://thespace.ink/essays/anne-bronte-legacy-of-other-bronte-sister/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louisa-May-Alcott
https://readinglittlewomen.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/louisa-may-alcott-reformer/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Eliot
My history textbook
My old class notes
My history teacher
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