Learning From The Classics Podcast: Anne Bronte

This track is a recording of my weekly LIVE PODCAST - Learning from the Classics, dated January 10th, 2025.

In my LIVE session, I will relate prompts from Classic Literature to the challenges we face every day. There is a certain sense of security in understanding some struggles are universal and not personal to ourselves. In such novels, there is also a reconciliation to be had with souls we cannot and will not ever meet, but who teach us so much. Today I will be looking at Anne Bronte and the theme of Motherhood.

Transcript

So I'm going to begin,

We're going to talk just to recap about the tenant of Ardfell Hall,

I'm sure that's probably coming back to front to you,

But yeah we're going to talk a bit about this today.

And I would say it's one of my favourites,

It's not my favourite,

I prefer Charlotte Bronte,

But Anne was one of the Bronte sisters.

This novel,

She's a bit of a dark horse Anne,

She was one of the more pious,

Charlotte was recorded as saying in her letters,

That her sister Anne was one of the more pious,

The quieter sisters.

Died at 30,

So she died quite young and in scholastic terms it's been mentioned that had she lived to an older age she might well have achieved more than her sisters,

Which is quite interesting.

So there were three sisters,

There was Emily,

There was Charlotte and there was Anne,

And there was one brother,

And the brother was,

He was a bit of a wild,

Wild card.

He suffered with addiction,

Alcohol and drugs,

Opiates,

And he also committed adultery,

And some of her first hand experiences of,

It was seen as depravity in those times,

Some of those experiences Anne had first hand knowledge of.

So we can see the link,

Some of the things that she's been writing about in this novel here.

We've got Arthur,

I don't know how much of my reading,

How many chapters you've listened to,

But you have Helen Graham,

And Helen Graham is a lady who has escaped an adulterous and a bad marriage really.

A marriage to a man,

Arthur,

Who was abusive and committed adultery and was very irresponsible with her money,

So he married her essentially to make,

He was a bit of a fortune hunter,

So he married her for that.

She didn't know that,

This Helen,

And she's set up in the book as a character who is motherless and who is brought up by her aunt.

They were all brought up by their aunt too.

So that's another direct link as to her own experiences,

But anyway,

So we've got this Helen and she decides I'm going to go into this marriage with this Arthur,

Quite naively,

Being quite a young girl,

And she realises very soon,

There were a few warnings along the way in the beginning,

And she realises quite soon into the marriage that,

Like Anne's brother,

He was a bit uncontrollable,

A bit out of control.

She has a son,

She has a little boy called Arthur,

And she leaves the marriage.

And luckily for her,

She has a brother,

Frederick,

Who at first is not very impressed with the idea,

But then he realises,

You know,

This is quite an abusive situation for my sister.

So he has this dilapidated property called Wildfell Hall,

And he says to Helen,

Right,

Okay,

Well you can live there,

And I will provide you with materials to do painting because you're a really good artist,

And you can sell your work and make some money.

So why was that groundbreaking?

First of all,

For a lady of the leisure classes to be earning her own money,

And secondly,

To leave your husband was unheard of.

So yeah,

It was in that way on another level.

So the books I've read so far on Insight Timer,

Jane Eyre from Charlotte,

Wuthering Heights by Emily,

I'm still reading,

Still reading all of these actually,

And The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne,

And all of these,

All three sisters wrote under male pseudonyms.

And what you have in Victorian society is,

I'm just going to go a little bit into the history of writing really,

Because I think this is relevant,

Is the introduction of novels,

Right?

In the 1700s,

We had plays,

And we had poetry.

There were no novels.

How mad is that?

There was the Bible,

But there were no novels,

Storytelling as such in the lengthy form we know it to be today,

Especially classic literature.

So how to make that palatable?

Well,

What made it palatable was to address big ideas under this kind of umbrella of romance,

Behind this kind of mask.

So it was kind of this covering big themes in cotton wool to make them more palatable.

And the big themes here,

As we can see,

The biggest theme that all three sisters have in common with their literature is the emancipation of women.

And of course,

You've got the suffragettes and various things coming along as a result of that.

It was a really important time for literature,

And really quite a scary time for women to go into literature and to have their voice.

We used to Shakespeare,

We used to this kind of work,

And now comes along the idea of women doing things other than just being in the home.

And all of these works have paved the way for the place we find ourselves in as women today.

And there will always be a backlash,

There will always be a,

Oh,

Well,

We can't really,

Especially today's generation,

You see,

Can't really understand or appreciate,

It's not raw enough to appreciate how difficult life was for women.

It's very difficult for me to appreciate.

By reading this literature,

We can get a real taste of the struggles of the time.

Okay.

So I'm going to go,

I'm going to talk a little bit about the Bronte sisters now.

And this strong moral viewpoint that Anne has,

Okay,

This,

She's tackling shocking subject matter,

Even though there is still a Christian viewpoint underpinning it.

So they could be controversial,

But in each of the sisters' novels,

We still have that Christianity,

You know,

That little thread of Christianity running through.

I can say,

I can have a voice,

I am a lady of leisure.

I am going to write down my ideas and thoughts.

And I can have a voice,

But I still need to be very much aligned with the thoughts of the time.

And I don't think very much has changed in that way.

Making controversial ideas more palatable,

We always have to consider the overall voice,

Okay,

The acceptable voice of the period.

It's not,

It's like anything that you do to,

It's like any way you persuade someone to do something,

If they are going to listen to your voice,

What you have to do is acknowledge theirs first,

Right?

Acknowledge the popular voice first.

And each of the sisters did that.

Okay.

So yeah,

This novel is very honest about domestic abuse,

Adultery,

And the powerlessness of the main character,

Okay?

There's,

You know,

There's allegory in that.

They were,

To a degree,

Powerless.

They watched their brother commit adultery,

They watched him embrace all the vices,

And found that very difficult to accept that,

Well,

Even though he's behaving this way,

He's still the person who's in control of the property,

The person who has the final say.

And yet,

They just had to accept that as women,

The Bronte sisters,

And that must have been very difficult.

In some ways,

You know,

We look at the patriarchal system today,

Not much has changed.

So as women,

We have a lot more freedom to earn our own money,

And therefore detach ourselves from this.

I mean,

It's not particularly socially acceptable now,

You know,

Either to be married or not,

You can be either or,

It's perfectly acceptable to be single,

Earning your own money,

Having your own existence,

Your own life.

So in that way,

Things have changed.

But as we know,

Men will still have the final say.

I don't think it's controversial to say that.

If I stand next to a man and I tell the same joke as that man,

He's going to be a lot more funny than me.

If I put in the same work and study as hard,

He's going to get more recognition for that.

That's just the way it is.

And I think as women,

We accept that very early on.

And you have to make peace with that.

And women writing in that time,

In Victorian times,

Had to make peace with that.

You have to work with what you have.

There's only so far,

So much progression you can see in one generation.

And I think that's reflected in this literature here.

Okay,

And the progression was,

We're going to take a chance and have a voice.

And we're going to speak about what marriage for some of us really does look like.

And we are going to suggest that it's not all roses.

And there's a way beyond that,

Without being a bad Christian,

Right?

Okay,

So at the time,

As we know,

The patriarchal laws and ideologies governed the family,

Marriage and mothering.

And for Anne,

Having lost her mother at the age of,

Well,

She was about a year old when she lost her mother.

So she always felt like an orphan.

She lamented the loss of what she could have had in her poetry.

I'll read you one of her poems in a minute.

And she was very clear on supporting the,

You know,

The power and the significance of a woman's role as a mother.

And she set up this character,

Helen Graham.

And she said,

Well,

You know what?

She's got to leave this Arthur,

Not for herself.

She's put up with his behavior for herself,

But for the sake of her young son.

So even though,

Again,

Making it more palatable,

Even though she's detaching herself from this terrible situation,

She is doing it to keep her young son safe.

So Anne was very big on the idea of the significance of mother.

In chapter 28,

She challenges her husband.

It is your own son,

Arthur,

She says.

Or if that consideration has no weight on you,

It is mine and you ought to respect my feelings.

So she's challenging her husband as a mother,

Okay,

Over her feelings or her viewpoint as a wife.

And that was very acceptable.

In Victorian times,

There was a detachment slightly from the idea.

And this partly came from Queen Victoria herself and the example she set.

She had many children.

She was said to be a very good mother and respected her mothering role.

And Anne set up this Helen as if to say,

Right,

Well,

She's going to port the idea of being a mother above all else.

And that was very palatable in Victorian times.

The idea of a woman just as some kind of a sexual object,

There was a detachment from that.

And there was a massive surge to celebrate the idea of motherhood.

So she fed into that narrative in that way.

So yes,

Helen Huntingdon,

She then changed her name.

So the character Helen Huntingdon,

She was married to Arthur Huntingdon.

And her brother said,

You take our mother's maiden name,

Which was Graham,

And you change your name so that Arthur,

Your husband can't find you,

And you go to live in this secluded building of mine,

This secluded house,

And you will become Helen Graham.

So again,

Another nod to this idea of the lost mother,

Which was clearly very significant to Anne.

Anne,

Charlotte and Emily were raised by a very strict aunt.

And we can see in Wildfell Hall that Helen was too,

And in some ways,

Because it suggested because she had no mother,

Helen had no mother,

She was seeking something.

She didn't have that advice from that maternal support or that maternal advice.

So she was seeking something beyond which.

She did something irresponsible,

But it wasn't her fault.

So there's an idea of sort of,

How could she know any better?

Okay.

And this is another nod to this loss of parenthood.

Anne Bronte wrote many poems,

But there's a significant poem regarding this theme I'm going to read to you.

It's called An Orphan's Lament.

And it goes like this.

They say such tears as children weep will soon be dried away.

That childish grief,

However strong,

Is only for a day.

And parted friends,

How dear soever,

Will soon forgotten be.

It may be so with other hearts.

It is not thus with me.

My mother,

Thou wilt weep no more,

For thou art gone above.

But can I ever cease to mourn thy good and fervent love?

While that was mine,

The world to me was sunshine bright and fair.

No feeling rose within my heart,

But thou couldst read it there.

And thou couldst feel for all my joys and all my childish cares.

And never weary of my play or scorn my foolish fears.

Beneath thy sweet maternal smile,

All pain and sorrow fled.

And even the very tears were sweet upon thy bosom shed.

Thy loss can never be repaired.

I shall not know again,

While life remains the peaceful joy that filled my spirit then.

Where shall I find a heart like thine,

While life remains to me?

And where shall I bestow the love I ever bought for thee?

This is a poem written about the loss of a mother she had yet to meet.

And I think this represents how significant that loss was in her life.

Okay,

So let's just talk a little bit more about Helen Graham,

The character.

She's known for her beauty.

She's a solitary heroine amongst patriarchal forces.

There are suggestions of other marriages,

Nods to other marriages within the novel,

Some of them dysfunctional.

So Anne's not playing into the narrative,

Just be married and everything's going to be okay.

It's the idea that,

Well,

It might not work out.

Let's go into it with open eyes.

Let's be sensible and think about what we want as women,

And that we can be married not just through social convention,

Not just as some kind of financial transaction,

But that marriage should be about a connection of minds,

A connection of worlds,

Of worldly views.

That was groundbreaking for the time.

Okay,

So yeah,

We have this object of commercial exchange,

Helen,

To start with,

And then we have this emancipation.

Of course,

She's connected.

She's met this Gilbert Markham.

Now,

If we look at the structure of the story,

We can see it's,

Well,

It's epistles,

Isn't it?

It's letter writing.

So to start with,

We have this letter writing of Gilbert Markham,

And this journaling.

So that's from his first person account of what he sees.

He's met this woman,

Helen.

He doesn't know why she's living in this hall.

What's she doing there?

It's all very strange.

He needs to find out more about him.

And then it cuts to Helen's point of view,

And the journaling and the diary entries,

Albeit year after year,

Big gaps in between,

Of her experience.

That has its strengths and its weaknesses,

But going back to this idea that,

Well,

We're not really used to these big,

Weighty,

Wordy novels.

That breaks it up for us.

It almost breaks it up into acts.

It makes it a little bit more palatable,

A little bit,

It has references to literature before that,

As I said,

Was more screenplays,

Okay,

Poetry,

That kind of thing.

And we can gain from that.

We can gain the viewpoint of Gilbert.

We can gain the viewpoint of Helen.

But unfortunately,

We lose something from that as well,

Because what tends to happen is,

We can only as a reader know what they know.

So if we're reading Gilbert's viewpoint,

It's restricted.

We're only reading his words,

His experience,

And the same with Helen.

So when you write in a third person narrative,

As a novel,

Okay,

You can step back from that and get more of an objective view.

This is quite subjective.

But again,

It's broken up in such a way that,

And it's a little bit like Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights was the same,

Many different viewpoints.

And we heard from Nellie,

The housekeeper,

Somebody who was a little bit detached from it quite often.

I personally don't like that style as much.

I prefer Charlotte's style.

But yeah,

That's what she was doing,

And that's why she was doing it.

Okay,

So again,

We see Helen go into this marriage with ideals.

And we see those ideals,

One by one,

Stripped away.

But the prevailing theme throughout is,

I am a mother first and foremost,

I will protect my child.

And that was its endearing quality.

So even though we're reading about a completely abusive situation,

Wherein she is restricted as to where she goes,

What she does,

How she reacts to her husband's misogyny.

I mean,

He's just awful.

We have that,

And then contrasted with it is,

Of course,

Her determination,

Helen's determination to power on regardless.

That,

I feel,

Is the strength of this book.

The contrast,

And the fact that she's celebrating motherhood.

And I think it's really important,

If we're looking at literature,

To have that sense of,

I understand what's going on,

Not just to read the words and,

This is another story.

But there's actually meaning behind that.

And I'm going to refer to now,

I've got this course coming up,

A writing course.

And the writing course is how to write your own narrative.

So this course is about writing your own narrative,

A short story.

It's in three parts,

Three lessons.

In the first lesson,

You write about,

You set up the characters,

You create a main character that represents who you were at the time of the incident,

Whatever incident it is you want to talk about.

We learn how to develop characterization.

And we also learn about an inciting moment,

How significant a moment can be.

And how it calls us to action,

To take action,

And how it develops a character.

In the second lesson,

We talk about plot development.

Okay?

And we zone in on one particular,

On our thoughts.

So you're writing in the third person,

As in Jane Eyre,

But actually,

Sorry,

You're writing in the first person,

As in Jane Eyre,

But about yourself.

Okay?

So Charlotte wasn't Jane,

Obviously.

Charlotte Bronte wasn't Jane Eyre,

But she wrote with the viewpoint of everything,

All the experiences she had.

And the same for Anne.

She wasn't Helen,

But she had seen so much,

So she put so much into her work.

So to recap,

The course I've written,

In three lessons,

Is us becoming the author and writing a short story about an experience,

An inciting moment that we've had,

That we want to make sense of and come to terms with.

It's a process of catharsis.

And that's what all these stories are.

And that's why it's so good to look at classic literature,

Because when you connect the themes to what's going on socially,

What's going on in the author's lives,

You can see there's a direct correlation.

And that's what we can use the number of experiences we've had as humans and as women.

So yeah,

Next week,

I'm going to hone in on themes and literary devices within classical literature that we can use in our work if we do the course.

Symbolism,

Pathetic fallacy,

Foreshadowing,

All of these devices are used within literature to create a mood,

A feeling,

And an emphasis.

And I'm going to teach you how to use them.

Keep listening,

Keep reading,

And keep absorbing yourself,

Nurturing yourself with stories of other women that have been there and done it.

I'll see you next time.

Reviews

😍🎈I've only seem a film and yes it did feel progressive for the times. Hooray for forward thinking. Thank you for this enjoyable replay. Specially since I missed your podcast today😯🌺🤗