Charlotte Bronte's "The Professor": autobiography and rejection

¶ … Charlotte Bronte's first novel entitled "The Professor." The paper describes the novel's basis, its narrator and key characters.

In addition to a description and a general assessment of the book, the paper includes fundamental analysis and interpretation of the literary work.

Positions such as how this novel describes Charlotte Bronte's personal feelings of passion, love and uncertainty are revealed throughout the material.

The Professor" is a novel written by Charlotte Bronte and published in 1857, a few years after her death. As Bronte's first novel, publishers rejected the book. It was available in print only after she died.

The story is based on Bronte's experiences as a student in Brussels in the 1840s.

The tale is narrated by a male character by the name of William Crimsworth. Crimsworth is an orphaned, yet educated man who becomes a teacher at a girls' school in Belgium.

Early in the story, Crimsworth is flirtatious with the headmistress of the school, Zoraide Reuter. Despite the situation, Crimsworth meets someone else, Frances Henri, a student-teacher at the school. Crimsworth falls in love with her.

The headmistress becomes very jealous of the relationship and causes a number of problems in the couple's relationship.

She continues to make sensual advancements, as well as manipulates the situation.

Crimsworth continues to resist the headmistress.

Finally, she gives up on him and marries the headmaster of a nearby boys' school. Crimsworth then resigns his position at the school. He pursues a more meaningful position at another institution, and then, is at last able to marry his love Frances.

General Assessment

The Professor" was, as previously mentioned in this paper, Charlotte Bronte's first novel, which perhaps explains why this novel is often considered as one of the less desirable pieces of her work. The book was published after her passing, when readers were already familiar with the author and had become fascinated by her writing.

Many critics refer to the novel as dreary or poor in quality. "A critic in 1857 wrote that it was "crude, unequal, and unnatural to a fault; it has all the unripe qualities of a bad first work." And indeed it is dreary and confusing, uninvolving and filled with minutiae, and suffers from many awkward and improbable devices, not the least of which is the choice of a male protagonist to tell a tale with many autobiographical aspects." (Edwards)

Conclusion

The Professor" was an early attempt at publication and a preliminary representation of the writings of a future acclaimed author. Although it is not considered as one of Bronte's better literary works, "The Professor" represents for readers the effect of personal experiences in life influential to Bronte's writing.

Like the narrator in "The Professor," Bronte experienced early on the power of passion and love in the presence of insecurity and doubt.

Bronte's failed relationships and the experiences of her family's deaths played a toll upon her.

Bronte's mother died at a very early age. Later, between the years of 1848 and 1849 her brother, Branwell, died, followed by the deaths of her sisters, Emily and Anne.

Bronte carried these sorrows with her into the depths of her literary works.

She wrote because writing provided her with a psychological release: life without composition was unthinkable to her. Full of manifestations of her sense of deprivation, tension, and repression, her creative work -- intuitively, almost unconsciously -- came more and more to provide her with a means of "filling the time which spreads between me and the grave," as one of her characters puts it." (Cody)

Ironically, Bronte died at a young age as well, reaching just shy of age forty. While pregnant with child, Bronte caught pneumonia shortly after she was married.

Her body weakened and failed from the condition.

Although her life was short, Charlotte Bronte made an impact on her era and her novels are still being read and studied today. "The Professor" is considered one of Bronte's less critically esteemed works, however, nevertheless it is still alive and well on America's bookshelves. As the preface of her novel "Jane Eyre" states, "To attack the first is not to assail the last."

Charlotte Bronte's literary contribution of "The Professor" provides readers with a deeper understanding and a greater insight into Charlotte Bronte, the author and the person.