Her overwhelming desire to be seen as not just the help but also a member of the family is fleshed out by Case, such that Nelly is strengthened as not just a narrator but as significant and compelling a character as the others.
By moving her from the periphery to the centre of the story, Case makes you realise that Nelly may have suffered more, perhaps, than the tragic figures she waited upon. (Gurveen Kapur)
Apparently yesterday, August 1, was the National Sisters Day and
The Albany Herald publishes a whole sisterly article, including examples of well-known sisters:
Famous English poets and novelists Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë originally published their work under the male pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. (Mary Braswell)
The Independent interviews the writer
Anna Smaill, who is the Man Booker Prize 2015 longlist:
Nevertheless, Smaill is quick to point out that her audience so far mainly comprises “older adults”, and sounds sceptical about dividing literature into clear-cut categories and genres. “A lot of the distinctions have been artificially drawn.” The novels she grew up reading at her local library – Jane Eyre, the works of Charles Dickens – evade all manner of pigeonholes.
Another writer,
Martina Boone, shares her favourite Southern Gothic Novels on
The Young Folks:
A lot of people either don’t know what Southern Gothic literature is, or they think of it as the heavy William Faulkner, Eudora Welty stuff they’re forced to read in high school. I happen to love most (not all) that heavy stuff, but I also adore books like Rebecca, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights that are considered traditional Gothics.
Do you know that
Serco (
probably the biggest company you've never heard of) was born in Yorkshire? Wanganui Chronicle (New Zealand, where the company has
some 'problems' with a prison which was operating) tells us:
It started out in Yorkshire ...
I come from Yorkshire, so appreciate the need to tread carefully - think Wuthering Heights, the Yorkshire Ripper and Emmerdale. Be afraid ... it's not for the fainthearted.
Serco grew massively from there. (Mark Dawson)
Seraglio and
Rebecca's Fashionand Life post about
Wuthering Heights. Absolutely Gothic explores Catherine Earnshaw Linton's Hysteria.
Annabelle Troy, author of
Jane Eyre Gets Real, posts about Jane Eyre and the blue moon.
Her overwhelming desire to be seen as not just the help but also a member of the family is fleshed out by Case...
ReplyDeleteCertainly Bronte servants were treated as family. The habitual seclusion of the Bronte world was such they had to be. Family was only allowed within the Parsonage walls in day to day living.
Patrick 's love of seclusion was the most famous of family but hardly the only case. None of them liked " strangers" in the house and would do the work themselves to avoid admitting new people
Martha herself had to serve a though apprenticeship before gaining full entry . But once you were accepted within the tribe , it was for life...save for the Garr sisters, but that was only because they were so young they had lives yet to lead...However they were regarded as family ever .
So Nelly as family is no stretch...in fact Emily seem to make an effort to have Nelly be a bit more of a servant in the book than she would be in the Bronte world . A Nelly Dean who served the Bronte family would not have to ask the likes of Lockwood how goes things at the Heights