COVE

With the revolution provided by the Penny Post in 1840, letter writing became a crucial aspect of Victorian life. It allowed for people to remain in contact over long distances and long stretches of time without having to travel very far to see them in person. The Brontës, isolated in Haworth and largely contained within their home, utilized letter writing as one of the sole avenues available to them to contact the outside world, and letter writing’s importance in both their daily lives and in the Victorian era as a whole is reflected in their novels, all of which feature letter writing to...

A diary is perhaps the most personal object a person could own. It is like an insight into a person’s brain, every page revealing a deep desire or concern. Victorian women who enjoyed writing, as the Brontë sisters did, needed a kind of creative outlet to express their raw emotions. Especially because female authors had difficulty publishing, writing in her diary would have been important and meaningful to Victorian women. In Anne's and Emily's novels, diaries are crucial to the fabric of the plot, highlighting their importance to women in society and to the Brontës themselves.

The...

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë all incorporated flowers into their creative works. Flowers were featured as subjects in the sisters' poems and paintings. They were also used as tools for building setting and sending coded messages in their novels. The sisters displayed a good understanding of floriography, or the language of flowers, in which flowers were assigned a specific meaning in order to be used as a mode of communication. Floriography was popular in Victorian England as a way to convey messages that could not be spoken aloud. Small flower bouquets called “tussie-mussies” were...

During the Victorian era, beaches and mourning were inevitably connected. With consumption taking loved ones from families, people including the Brontës would bring their sick to beaches in hopes the fresh salty air would heal them. Scarborough Beach was one of these places.  Anne Brontë had many happy memories at Scarborough Beach from when she traveled there as a governess to the Robinson family of Thorp Green Hall, annually spending about five weeks there per trip. When Anne was dying of consumption, her sister Charlotte and friend Ellen Nussey brought her to Scarborough Beach in...

Windows in Wuthering Heights are at the forefront of Catherine’s characterization. In Wuthering Heights, windows are a type of barrier, a way to marginalize the person stuck on one side of the window. More often than not, it is Catherine who seems to be marginalized by the windows. Each time that Catherine is displayed at or by the window, Brontë places things in the scene that intensify the marginalization that Catherine undergoes.  Each time the window stands between Catherine and something she truly wants. Brontë demonstrates the way in which the window is a barrier...

When reading about writers, especially canonical writers, it is rare to find such poignant prevalance of nature as one finds when reviewing the lives and works of the Brontë sisters. From wild Emily to scholarly Charlotte to enduring Anne, the natural world and its inhabitants played a crucial role in the lives of the Brontës and their world views. The most important element of this role, though, was played by the sisters' canine companions. They appear in their biographies and books, over and over again, and they are key to understanding many parts of the sisters' lives and what kept them...