Lesson video

Welcome to our second lesson of "Jane Eyre." In today's lesson, we're going to learn more about the novels author, Charlotte Bronte.

As you're going to see, Bronte lives a fascinating life, one that it was full of sorrow, heartbreak, and tragedy.

Let's learn more about this remarkably talented lady.

For today's lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, and a pen.

If you do not have this equipment, press the pause button on your video now.

Go and collect this equipment, and then we will begin our lesson.

Let's begin with a recap from our last lesson.

Here is a multiple choice question.

Which one of these statements about the Victorian era is true? Option one, women were expected to have a career.

Option two, Britain was a weak country.

Option three, there was great social inequality.

Or option four, women were allowed to vote.

Press the pause button on your video now and tell the screen the right answer.

I will now tell you the right answer, which is, of course, option three.

There was indeed great social inequality in Victorian Britain.

In other words, there was a great difference between the lives of the rich and the lives of the poor.

Well done if you got that right.

Now, some of you may have chosen one of the other options, and option one is not true.

Women in Victorian times were not expected to have a career.

Instead, they were expected to devote themselves to a life of domestic chores and child raising.

Some of you may have chosen option two.

Britain was not a weak country.

Remember, during the Victorian era Britain owned that British Empire, making it the most powerful country in the world.

And some of you may have chosen option four.

Women, in fact, were not allowed to vote in the Victorian era.

Remember, they were not expected to play a role in public life.

Now, in our last lesson, I introduced this idea of context for you.

I explained that it's very important that we understand a novel's context if we are going to understand the writer's message.

Now, in our last lesson, we looked at the historical context of Jane Eyre.

In other words, we looked at the events in the world around the writer and how these events helped inspire the writer.

Now, today, we're going to be looking at the authorial context of "Jane Eyre." In other words, we're going to be looking at how the author's own experiences inspired her writing of this novel.

So today we're going to be examining Charlotte Bronte.

We're going to be looking at how the various events and dramas throughout her life inspired her writing of our story.

We're going to begin by looking at Charlotte Bronte's family.

We'll then look at Charlotte Bronte's life in Yorkshire.

We'll then look at Charlotte Bronte's life in school.

And then finally, we'll take a look at Charlotte Bronte's employment.

Let's begin.

Now, Charlotte Bronte belonged to a very famous literary family.

Here's a picture of the three most famous Bronte sisters.

All three of these sisters were very famous writers.

First of all, we have Anne.

Anne was the youngest sister.

She wrote a very famous novel called "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." Here we have Emily.

Emily was the middle sister.

She wrote "Wuthering Heights." Now, "Wuthering Heights" is often compared to "Jane Eyre." It's another dark novel filled with very Gothic, gloomy, and moody imagery.

It's another novel that I would highly recommend.

And here, of course, we have Charlotte.

Charlotte was the eldest sister, and "Jane Eyre" is her most famous novel.

Now, it truly is astounding that these three Bronte sisters managed to become such successful writers.

In the Victorian times, society did not expect women to be able to produce serious works of fiction.

The success of the Bronte sisters very much challenged Victorian society's beliefs and stereotypes about gender.

Their works are now some of the most famous and celebrated novels across the whole world.

Now let's test your memory upon these ideas.

There's two sentences here.

Press the pause button on your video now.

Go through both sentences, filling in the word in blank.

Tell the screen the full sentence.

Off you go.

Let's now take a look at the full sentences.

The Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, are one of the world's greatest literary families.

It is remarkable that these sisters achieved literary success because Victorian society did not expect women to produce serious works of fiction.

Well done if you've got both of those sentences correct.

Now, I'm going to introduce you to a new way of writing today, a new method called appositives.

As I explained in my last lesson, throughout the series of lessons, I want to teach you how to write very good and detailed sentences.

One of the things that you can use to make your sentences more detailed are appositives.

Now let me explain the idea behind an appositive.

Here we have a sentence.

Charlotte Bronte challenged Victorian society's assumptions about the abilities of female writers.

Now, for this sentence here, there's nothing wrong with it, but I could add more detail.

I could add more detail to make the sentence more convincing and more persuasive.

In particular, I could add a little bit of detail about Charlotte Bronte.

In this situation, I am going to use an appositive.

Let's add another phrase about Charlotte Bronte to make this sentence more detailed and more persuasive.

Charlotte Bronte, who wrote the wildly successful novel "Jane Eyre," challenged Victorian society's assumptions about the abilities of female writers.

Now, can you see that phrase in pink, who wrote the wildly successful novel "Jane Eyre." This phrase in pink is called an appositive.

It is a phrase that is giving us extra information about Charlotte Bronte, making this sentence more detailed and more persuasive.

Now, it's very important that we punctuate appositives correctly.

As you can see, on either side of this phrase, we can see two commas.

We can see a comma after the word Bronte and a comma after the word Eyre.

So these two commerce separates the appositive from the rest of the sentence.

Now, why we have these two commas here? Well, I think the easiest way to understand this is an appositive is a phrase in a sentence that can be taken out of a sentence and the sentence will still make sense.

The commas are used to separate this phrase from the rest of the sentence.

Now I want you to imagine I take a fork and I stick it into this phrase here, and I take it out of the sentence.

As you can see, the sentence still makes sense.

The sentence still works as a sentence without the appositive.

So as I explained before, an appositive is a very useful phrase that we can add to a sentence to make our writing more detailed and more persuasive.

It is separated on either side by two commas.

Let's take a look at another appositive example here.

Here's a sentence for us.

The Bronte sisters are one of the world's greatest literary families.

Now, for this sentence, there's nothing wrong with this sentence, but I could make this sentence more detailed and more persuasive if I added a positive about the Bronte sisters.

If I added an additional phrase, I've given us more detail about the Bronte sisters.

And remember, this phrase, this appositive will need to be separated from two commas on either side.

Here's our appositive.

The Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, are one of the world's greatest literary families.

That's a very good sentence because it gives us extra detail, making this idea all the more persuasive.

Later on in this lesson, I will give you the opportunity to write your own appositives.

Right, let's now take a look at Charlotte Bronte's life in Yorkshire and how this influenced her writing of "Jane Eyre." Here is a picture of Yorkshire.

Now, Charlotte Bronte was born in Thornfield, Yorkshire in 1816.

Yorkshire is famous for its beautiful countryside, but some of it can be bleak and barren, especially in winter.

The Yorkshire countryside can be very barren.

That means that not very much can grow in parts of the Yorkshire countryside.

It can be very cold, bare, and empty, especially in wintertime.

Now, this is the perfect setting for our novel "Jane Eyre." The bleak and barren Yorkshire countryside contributes to the dark, moody atmosphere of our novel.

Right here is a sentence.

There's some words that are missing.

I want you to go through the sentence, filling in the missing words and tell the screen the right answer.

Press the pause button on your video now.

Off you go.

Let's now take a look at the right answer.

Charlotte Bronte was brought up in Yorkshire.

This landscape can be very bleak and barren, especially in winter.

Well done if you got that right.

Let's now take a look at Charlotte Bronte's life in school.

Charlotte and her sisters were sent to a very strict boarding school called the Clergy Daughters' School.

Now, let me give you a few examples of just how hard life was for these girls in this school.

Now, I explained earlier on that this school is a boarding school.

A boarding school is a school in which pupils live in the actual building.

So they will go to sleep in the building, they will wake up, and then they would go to their lessons.

Now, a great tragedy struck Charlotte Bronte's life when she was a pupil in this school.

Whilst Charlotte was a pupil, the school suffered an outbreak of tuberculosis.

And this is a very serious disease that was common in the Victorian times.

Charlotte's sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, caught tuberculosis and were sent home.

They eventually died from this disease.

Now, throughout the rest of her life, Charlotte felt very bitter about the tragic deaths of her sisters, Maria and Elizabeth.

Charlotte blamed the school for this tragedy.

She believed that the poor diet provided by the school for the pupils and the terrible conditions in which a pupils had to live contributed to Maria and Elizabeth dying from this disease.

Charlotte Bronte uses these experiences in school to inspire her writing of the opening section of "Jane Eyre," in which Jane has to attend a similarly very strict school.

Let's now test your memory on these ideas.

Press the pause button on your video now.

Go through both of these sentences, telling the screen the full sentence including the words in blank.

Off you go.

Let's now take a look at the full sentences.

Charlotte attended a very strict boarding school called the Clergy Daughters' School.

Charlotte's sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died after they contracted a disease called tuberculosis in this school.

Well done if you got full marks there.

Let's now take a look at a sentence fragment.

Remember in our last lesson, I told you about how we can use sentence fragments and ask questions about sentence fragments to help us write a really good, detailed sentence.

Here's our sentence fragment, had a painful experience of boarding school.

Now, let's ask ourselves different questions about this sentence fragment.

We could ask ourselves who? Who had the painful experience of boarding school? It is, of course, Charlotte Bronte.

We can also ask ourselves where? Where was this boarding school? It was, of course, the Clergy Daughters' School.

Charlotte Bronte had a painful experience of a boarding school, the Clergy Daughters' School.

We could ask ourselves why? Why did she have a painful experience in this school? And I think there's two big reasons.

First of all, the school had very strict rules.

And secondly, the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth from tuberculosis also made this experience very painful.

Now I want you to write your own sentence, or two sentences, if you would like, using a sentence fragment and these questions and answers.

To make your sentence really good, you could also use an appositive in your answer.

Just to clarify, you could write more than one sentence here.

You might want to write one or two or maybe three.

Press the pause button on your video now, and complete the sentence fragment.

Off you go.

Let's now take a look at an exemplar.

So for this exemplar, everything talking about who is in green, everything talking about where is in blue, and everything talking about why is in pink.

Charlotte Bronte had a painful experience as a boarding pupil in the Clergy Daughters' School.

She despised or hated the strict and severe rules of this establishment.

Furthermore, Charlotte was saddened by the deaths of her sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who died after catching tuberculosis at the school.

Charlotte believed that the pupils' poor diet and the school's strict regime led to this tragedy.

That is a very good set of sentences, because it's very detailed and answers these questions who, where, and why.

And as you can see in this sentence, I have used an appositive.

And this is the same sentence again, and I've used this appositive to give more information about Charlotte's sisters.

That appositive is in pink, and as you can see, I have separated the words Maria and Elizabeth.

I've separated this phrase from the rest of the sentence using two commas.

Let's finally learn about Charlotte Bronte's employment.

Now, Charlotte Bronte worked as a teacher and a governess after she left school.

Once she finished school, Charlotte worked as a teacher and governess in England and Belgium.

In Victorian times, governesses were employed by rich families to privately educate their children.

So a governess would often live with a rich family and have private lessons with a rich family's children.

Now, Jane Eyre is also a governess.

Jane Eyre becomes a governess for a very rich man called Rochester in this story.

And Charlotte Bronte's writing of Jane Eyre is very much inspired by her experience of being a governess.

Charlotte Bronte had a rather miserable time in this job.

Being a governess could be very lonely.

Many governesses were left isolated because they had to live at the rich family's house and felt very much cut off from the rest of the outside world.

Many governesses were also treated badly by the families that they were working for, and they were often treated as being a little better than a servant.

This is another experience that inspired Bronte's writing of "Jane Eyre." When she wasn't working, Charlotte wrote novels and poems, and in August 1847, Charlotte published her first novel, "Jane Eyre." Now, as we have explained before, writing as a woman in the Victorian times posed many challenges to Charlotte Bronte.

How would she become a literary success? Remember what we learnt last lesson about Victorian society's treatment of women.

They were expected to live a life devoted to domestic chores and child-raising.

They were not expected to have a career, such as writing.

They were expected to have no role in public life.

Remember, they did not even have the vote.

As you can see, Charlotte Bronte experienced many challenges in becoming a literary success.

So what did Charlotte Bronte do? Well, she published the book under the pseudonym, Currer Bell.

Now that name, Currer Bell, that is a male name, so for people who read "Jane Eyre" for the first time after it was published, these people would have assumed it was written by a man rather than a woman.

Why did Charlotte Bronte do this? Why did she use the pseudonym Currer Bell? Well, Charlotte used the pseudonym to hide her gender because her publishers thought people would be less likely to buy the book if they knew it was written by a woman.

Remember, in the Victorian times, many people did not believe that a woman could produce a serious work of fiction.

Eventually, Charlotte Bronte did reveal her true identity to the public.

She admitted that she had written "Jane Eyre." Many reviewers were very surprised.

They could not believe that a woman was capable of producing such a successful work of fiction.

Overnight, Charlotte Bronte became a celebrity.

She became widely celebrated across Britain, and "Jane Eyre" the novel is now recognised as one of the greatest works of British fiction.

Charlotte Bronte, though, continued to live a rather private life.

She wrote another two novels before she died at the age of 38 in 1855.

Let's now test your memory upon these ideas.

You have got two sentences with a word missing.

Press the pause button on your video now.

Tell the screen both sentences, filling in the word that is missing.

Off you go.

Let's now take a look at our answers.

Charlotte Bronte wrote "Jane Eyre" using the pseudonym Currer Bell and Charlotte Bronte thought that people were more likely to buy the novel if they thought it was written by a man.

Well done if you got both of those sentences right.

Let's now take a look at a sentence fragment, used the pseudonym Currer Bell.

Let's ask yourselves different questions about this sentence fragment to help us write a really good, detailed few sentences.

Who used the pseudonym Currer Bell? It is, of course, Charlotte Bronte.

When did she use the pseudonym Currer Bell? It is of course in 1847.

Why did she do this? Well, Charlotte Bronte used the pseudonym Currer Bell to publish "Jane Eyre," but we need to explain this a little bit more, so I've got a second answer, this why question.

She believed that more people would read the book if it was published by a man.

Now, in a minute, I want you to write a full set of sentences using a sentence fragment, these questions, and these answers.

To challenge yourself, try to use an appositive in your answer.

Press the pause button on your video now, and write your answer in your book or on your page.

Off you go.

Let's now take a look at an exemplar set of sentences.

Who is in green, when is in blue, and why is in pink.

In 1847, Charles Bronte used the pseudonym, Currer Bell, to publish "Jane Eyre." She thought that her contemporaries who widely held the belief that women were incapable of producing works of literary quality would be more likely to buy the book if it was written under a man's name.

Now, you may have seen that I have used an appositive in this answer.

Let's take a closer look.

Here is a sentence that includes the appositive.

She thought that her contemporaries, who widely held the belief that women were incapable of producing works of literary quality would be more likely to buy the book if it was written under a man's name.

The phrase in pink is the appositive in this sentence.

This appositive gives us extra information about Bronte's contemporaries.

As I have explained before, using appositives make your writing more detailed and more persuasive.

And as you can see, I have separated this phrase, I've separated this appositive with commas on either side of the phrase.

These commas demonstrate that I can take this phrase out of the sentence and the sentence will still make sense.

Let's now test your memory on everything that you've learnt across today's lesson.

True or false? Bronte's writing of "Jane Eyre" was inspired by A, Charlotte's childhood in the bleak and barren Yorkshire countryside, B, Charlotte's fame as a writer, C, Charlotte's experience in a strict and severe boarding school, D, the death of Charlotte's sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, from tuberculosis, and E, Charlotte's experience as a governess.

Now, just to clarify, there is more than one of these answers which is true.

Off you go.

Go go through each of these options, telling the screen whether it is true or false.

Let's now take a look at the right answers.

True.

Charlotte's childhood in the bleak and barren Yorkshire countryside did indeed inspire her writing of "Jane Eyre." B is false.

Charlotte's fame as a writer did not inspire "Jane Eyre." Remember, Charlotte only became famous after she published "Jane Eyre." Charlotte's experience in the strict and severe boarding school did indeed inspire her writing of "Jane Eyre," as you will see in future lessons.

D is also true.

The death of Charlotte's sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, from tuberculosis also inspired her writing of "Jane Eyre." And E is also true.

Charlotte's experience as a governess did inspire her writing of "Jane Eyre." Well done if you got all of those answers right.

Here's a list of our credits for the different pictures that we've used across this lesson.

And that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

Join us next time when we examine the novel's setting.

We will look at how Bronte uses the bleak and barren setting of Yorkshire to create the novel's dark and gloomy atmosphere.

I'll see you next time.

And before you leave, make sure you complete the end-of-lesson quiz.