Charlotte Bronte in her Letters

While the letters of Charlotte Bronte are a major source for our knowledge of the events and personalities in the Bronte story, it is worthwhile to look at them as one her achievements in authorship and what they reveal of her character. Compared to her contemporaries, her letters exhibit a stiffness and heaviness of style, probably due to the nature of her early reading and lack of social intercourse. As she grew older her style lightened, but she never lost her fervour, a feature that make her letters so interesting. Being a shy person, Charlotte enjoyed writing letters and revealed more of herself in them than she did in company. She was a good observer of human nature and a shrewd commentator on life. She wrote with certainty and assurance on matters right and wrong, and could be censorious and didactic, yet at times showed great understanding. She had a spartan self-repressive attitude to life; of submission to fate, fortitude, control of excessive feeling, and a sacrifice of self-interest. But this was not how she saw herself and is in contrast to her novels where there is more passion and intensity of experience. Charlotte was uncomfortable with dealing with public questions and came to recognize her limited experience, evidenced in the change of tone from Shirley to Villette. The appeal of her letters is in her openness, her truthfulness and in her personal feelings.