OVERVIEW OF EMILY BRONTË

Emily Brontë has become mythologized both as an individual and as one of

the Brontë sisters. She has been cast as Absolute Individual, as Tormented Genius,
and as Free Spirit Communing with Nature; the trio of sisters–Charlotte, Emily, and
Anne–have been fashioned into Romantic Rebels, as well as Solitary Geniuses.
Their lives have been sentimentalized, their psyches psychoanalyzed, and their
home life demonized. In truth, their lives and home were strange and often unhappy.
Their father was a withdrawn man who dined alone in his own room; their Aunt
Branwell, who raised them after the early death of their mother, also dined alone in
her room. The two oldest sisters died as children. For three years Emily supposedly
spoke only to family members and servants. Their brother Branwell, an alcoholic and
a drug addict, put the family through the hell of his ravings and threats of committing
suicide or murdering their father, his physical and mental degradation, his bouts of
delirium tremens, and, finally, his death.

As children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne had one another and books

as companions; in their isolation, they created an imaginary kingdom called Angria
and filled notebooks describing its turbulent history and character. Around 1831,
thirteen-year old Emily and eleven-year old Anne broke from the Angrian fantasies
which Branwell and Charlotte had dominated to create the alternate history of
Gondal. Emily maintained her interest in Gondal and continued to spin out the
fantasy with pleasure till the end of her life. Nothing of the Gondal history remains
except Emily's poems, the references in the journal fragments by Anne and Emily,
the birthday papers of 1841 and 1845, and Anne's list of the names of characters and
locations.

Little is known directly of Emily Brontë. All that survives of Emily's own words

about herself is two brief letters, two diary papers written when she was thirteen and
sixteen, and two birthday papers, written when she was twenty-three and twenty-
seven. Almost everything that is known about her comes from the writings of others,
primarily Charlotte. Even Charlotte's novel, Shirley, has been used as a biographical
source because Charlotte created Shirley, as she told her biographer and friend
Elizabeth Gaskell, to be "what Emily Brontë would have been had she been placed in
health and prosperity."

Often Wuthering Heights is used to construct a biography of Emily's life,

personality, and beliefs. Edward Chitharn equates Emily, the well-read housekeeper
of the family home, with Nelly based on the similarity of their roles and the similarity
of their names, "Nelly" being short for "Ellen" which is similar to Emily's pseudonym
"Ellis." The supposed anorexia of Catherine, who stops eating after Edgar's
ultimatum, and of Heathcliff, who stops eating at the end, is used as proof of Emily's
anorexia; support for this interpretation is found in the tendency of all four Brontë
siblings not to eat when upset. Alternately, Emily's supposed anorexia is used to
explain aspects of the novel. Katherine Frank characterizes Emily as a constantly
hungry anorexic who denies her constant hunger; "Even more importantly," Frank
asks, "how was this physical hunger related to a more pervasive hunger in her life–
hunger for power and experience, for love and happiness, fame and fortune and
fulfilment?" One expression of these hungers is the intense focus on food, hunger,

and starvation in Wuthering Heights . Furthermore, the kitchen is the main setting,
and most of the passionate or violent scenes occur there.

Similarly, Emily's poems are used to interpret her novel, particularly those

poems discussing isolation, rebellion, and freedom. Readings of Wuthering Heights
as a mystical novel, a religious novel, or a visionary novel call on "No coward soul is
mine," one of her best poems. The well known "Riches I hold in light esteem" is cited
to explain her choice of a reclusive lifestyle, as is"A Chainless Life." The fact that
many of these poems were written as part of the Gondal chronicles and are dramatic
speeches of Gondal characters is blithely ignored or explained away. (In 1844 Emily
went through her poems, destroying some, revising others, and writing new poems;
she collected them and clearly labeled the Gondal poems.)

The poems and Wuthering Heights have also been connected. The editor of

her poems, C.W. Hatfield, sees the same mind at work in both, and Charles Morgan
perceives in them "the same unreality of this world, the same greater reality of
another,... and a unique imagination."