Brontë Studies. Volume 33, Issue 3

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 33, Issue 3, November 2008) is already available on-line. We provide you the table of contents and abstracts:

Editorial : pp. iii-iv(1) Author: Adams, Amber M.

ARTICLES

'This Shattered Prison': Confinement, Control And Gender in Wuthering Heights
pp. 179-191(13) Author: Crouse, Jamie S.
Abstract:
The recurrent plot device of confinement, both physical and psychological, as a means of establishing power over others and its consequences in Wuthering Heights are explored within the nineteenth-century social framework of traditional gender roles. The primary instigators of confinement in the novel, Catherine and Heathcliff, exhibit differing gender-related patterns. Catherine primarily views herself in relation to others and her acts of confinement become self-destructive whereas Heathcliff, in valuing hierarchy, is destructive of others. Emily Brontë shows that as both Catherine and Heathcliff follow traditional gender roles, neither is able to achieve the communion they had as children together. A brief review of earlier work on the subject and background in psychological studies are given.

'The Awful Event' in Wuthering Heights
pp. 192-202(11) Author: Inman, Laura
Abstract
In Wuthering Heights death dominates the narrative, drives the plot, and is expressed thematically and symbolically; however, its centrality has not been identified or explored by other analyses. Emily Brontë's own experience with death serves in part to explain the focus on death in the novel and, in particular, the presence of numeric symbols of death, which have gone unnoticed by critics. Further, her poetic proclivity is the basis for understanding why Wuthering Heights is a veritable meditation on death.

Marriage in Jane Eyre: From Contract to Conversation
pp. 203-217(15) Author: Phillips, James
Abstract
Jane Eyre contends that marriage is irreducible to a contract; it must be sustained by the conversation of equals. Yet the marriage of equals that the novel's conclusion describes between Jane and Rochester cannot be confused with the legal entrenchment of sexual inequality in early nineteenth-century marriage laws. A political message is inscribed in the ending. Equality cannot survive without legal recognition and, in early nineteenth-century Britain, this means legal reform: Jane cannot be Rochester's equal if she is simply his mistress and she also cannot be his equal if the laws concerning marriage are not reformed. Jane and Rochester come together in conversation, inventing each other for themselves, and reinventing marriage as the social form of such freedom.

'I Heard Her Murmurs': Decoding Narratives of Female Desire in Jane Eyre and Secresy
pp. 218-231(14) Authors: Fisk, Nicole Plyler
Abstract
Ellen Moers, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar all validate the idea that the Brontës could have engaged in a literary dialogue with some of their female predecessors, thereby contributing to early feminist discourse. Reading Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) as a companion text to Eliza Fenwick's Secresy [sic] (1795) offers a new perspective on various elements in the novel, including female friendship and Bertha's laugh. Ultimately, this author suggests that, in the featured texts, there is both a narrator and a listener, with the greater responsibility being on the latter. In Jane Eyre and Secresy, Jane and Caroline must decode the language of women imprisoned by the patriarchy and attempt to free them. Caroline is more successful than Jane, not simply because Sibella's narrative is more coherent than Bertha's, but because Caroline is more willing than Jane to challenge the prevailing practice of male domination and female repression.

A Trip to Yorkshire — 1842
pp. 232-241(10) Author: Fermi, Sarah
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to put into the public record a private letter written at the time of the Chartist riots during the general strike of August, 1842. This letter reveals details of upper middle-class social life in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the Brontë era and sheds light on a prominent local family well known to the Brontës by reputation, a family related to several others with whom the Brontës had a personal connection. The letter was written by Maria Brewitt, the sixteen-year-old sister of the bride of John Greenwood Sugden of Steeton Hall, and describes the journey of the bridal party as they travel from the Essex home of the bride, Mary Hatton Brewitt, to Leeds by train and, thence, by coach to Steeton via Eastwood House in Keighley, and the first few days of the visit. It ends on a tense cliff-hanger with the family awaiting the arrival of the Chartist rioters at their very door.

The Rout of the Reverend Redhead: Gaskell and Longley
pp. 242-244(3) Author: Wilks, Brian
Abstract
The aim of this article is to draw attention to the account that the Bishop of Ripon gave his wife of the tale of the Reverend Redhead's experience at the mercy of Haworth villagers objecting to his appointment as their minister. This version pre-dates and differs from Mrs Gaskell's account in her Life of Charlotte Brontë.

A Brontë Reading List: Part 2
pp. 245-255(11) Author: Ogden, James
Abstract
This is the second part of an annotated bibliography of essays, mostly in scholarly and critical journals, 2000-2007. The first part was published in Brontë Studies, 32:2, July 2007.

REVIEWS pp. 256-270(15)

Categories: Brontë Society, Journals, Scholar