The three Bronte sisters,  Emily, Charlotte and Anne, were all blessed with the talent and ability to write memorable poetry and prose.  However there appears to be a darkness in their lives, perhaps because of the death of their mother and that of two sisters that died only four years later and the aloofness of their father.

When Emily wrote:

Sleep brings no joy to me,

Remembrance never dies;

My soul is given to misery
And lives in sighs.
Sleep brings no rest to me;
The Shadows of the dead
My waking eyes may never see
Surround my bed.

The three sisters and their brother Branwell were raised by an aunt after their mother’s death in Yorkshire, England. They were very close and Emily especially, preferred the company of her sisters to that of outsiders.  Even as young children, they collaborated on writing projects, often creating imiginary worlds as an escape from the realities of their lives.

The first collection by the three sisters

Emily’s first published collection of poetry, Poems by Currier, Ellis and Acton Bell, were actually written by the three sisters.  Currier was  Charlotte, Ellis was Emily, and Acton Bell was Anne. At the time it was published, it was not seen as proper for women to write and publish books so their identity was hidden.

Emily

The sadness and darkness that permeates the writing of each one of the three sisters is seen in that of the heroine, Cathy, in Wuthering Heights, says:

I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free.

Emily  portray Healthcliff as brooding and lovelorn.  The whole book seems to be a story of cruelty, cemeteries, ghosts and revenge.

Wuthering Heights was condemned by the press at that time for what was described as being morbid and using inappropriate subject matter because it contained what was considered scandalized revelations.

Charlotte

As the eldest of the three remaining sisters, Charlotte’s writing was a reflection of the the frustration and loneliness she felt living in the rectory in which she was raised after her mother’s death.

In Jane Eyre, she wrote

 It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot….

 The Professor was not published during Charlotte’s lifetime but later became a classic.

When she had wrote “A Biographical Notice of  Ellis and Acton Belll” she explained the morbidity of Emily’s work by referring to the “horror of darkness” in her life.

Anne

Like her sisters, Anne was mostly educated at home and became a governess just like her sisters. When she wrote Agnes Grey, it was based on the spoilt children of her employers that she cared for.

When she wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne used the erratic behavior of her brother Branwell as the model for the character Arthur Huntington.

The three sisters remembered

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte broke through the attitudes that had governed the poetry and fiction of their time.  Previously it had been cautious, slightly reverential and respectful.  The three women wrote books and poetry that contained revelations of the darkness of the soul in their lives.  
Emily’s words express:

Deep down, concealed within my soul,
That light lies hid from men;
Yet glows unquenched–though shadows roll,
Its gentle ray cannot control–& these gloomy ways
To walk alone so long?
Around me, wretches uttering praise,
Or howling o’er their hopeless days,
And each with Frenzy’s tongue;–
 
A brotherhood of misery,
Their smiles as sad as sighs;
Whose madness daily maddened me,
Distorting into agony
The bliss before my eyes!

Home to the Bronte sisters