English and American Writers

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë was born in Yorkshire, England on April 21, 1816. Because Charlotte’s mother died when Charlotte was five years old, Charlotte’s aunt helped her brother-in-law raise his children. In 1824 Charlotte and three of her sisters—Maria, Elizabeth, and Emily—were sent to Cowan Bridge school . When an outbreak of tuberculosis killed Maria and Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily were brought home. Several years later, Charlotte returned to school, this time in Roe Head, England. She became a teacher at school but decided after several years to become a private governess instead. She was hired to live with and tutor the children of the wealthy family in 1839, but the job was a misery to her and she soon left it.

Finding herself equally disappointed with governess work, Charlotte recruited her sisters to join her in more serious preparation for the establishment of a school.Although the Brontës’ school was unsuccessful, their literary projects flourished. Charlotte suggested that she, Anne, and Emily collaborate on a book of poems. The three sisters published under male pennames: Charlotte’s was Currer Bell, while Emily and Anne wrote as Ellis and Acton Bell, respectively. When the poetry volume received little public notice, the sisters decided to work on separate novels but retained the same pennames. Later Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre. The book, a critique of Victorian assumptions about gender and social class, became one of the most successful novels of its era, both critically and commercially. Autobiographical elements are recognizable throughout Jane Eyre.

In Jane Eyre, there are five distinct stages of development, each linked to a particular place: Jane’s childhood at Gateshead, her education at the Lowood School, her time as Adèle’s governess at Thornfield, her time with the Rivers family and her reunion and marriage to Mr. Rochester. From these experiences, Jane becomes the mature woman who narrates the novel retrospectively. After the success of Jane Eyre, Charlotte revealed her identity to her publisher and went on to write several other novels. Later she became a respected member of London’s literary set. But the deaths of siblings Emily and Branwell in 1848, and of Anne in 1849, left her feeling dejected and emotionally isolated. In 1854, she wed Reverend Nicholls, despite the fact that she did not love him. She died of pneumonia, while pregnant, the following year.

Ray Bradbury

Bradbury has received many awards for his writing and has been honored in numerous ways. Most notably, Apollo astronauts named the Dandelion Crater on the moon after his novel Dandelion Wine.

Fahrenheit 451

Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears.Montag encounters a gentle seventeen-year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan, who opens his eyes to the emptiness of his life with her innocently penetrating questions and her unusual love of people and nature. Montag’s dissatisfaction with his life increases, and he begins to search for a solution in a stash of books that he has stolen from his own fires and hidden inside an air-conditioning vent.When Montag fails to show up for work, his fire chief, Beatty, pays a visit to his house.

Montag remembers that he once met a retired English professor named Faber sitting in a park, and he decides that this man might be able to help him understand what he reads. He visits Faber, who tells him that the value of books lies in the detailed awareness of life that they contain. Faber says that Montag needs not only books but also the leisure to read them and the freedom to act upon their ideas.

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 23, 1899, into a family with a long history of public service and scholarship. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Nabokov and his family went into exile in England. Trilingual in Russian, English, and French from an early age, Nabokov earned an honors degree in Slavic and Romance languages from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1922. He embarked upon a literary career, writing primarily in Russian. Among his notable early works was a Russian translation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. In 1925, Nabokov married Vera Slonim, and in 1934 their only child, Dmitri, was born. Nabokovs lived in both Germany and France before emigrating to the United States in 1940, where Nabokov taught literature courses at Wellesley and Cornell Universities. The move to America also inspired Nabokov to begin writing in English.

LolitaLolita represents a classic example of postmodern literature. Humbert Humbert, the protagonist of Lolita, narrates the novel from a highly subjective point of view, and he uses rich, sophisticated language to do so. Lolita contains a vast variety of linguistic devices, including puns, multilingual expressions, artistic allusions, word patterns, and references to other works. The beauty and intensity of the language allow readers to remain sympathetic to the pedophile protagonist and compel them to read further, despite the numerous distressing events within the novel. Though Lolita is a fictional novel, Nabokov actually shared many personality traits with his protagonist Humbert Humbert. Both men were highly educated, academically oriented European exiles who made their homes in America, and both possessed a compelling gift for language. However, unlike the pedophiliac, delusional Humbert, Nabokov was a devoted family man who lived a quiet existence.

Nabokov believed that the proper language could elevate any material to the level of art. In Lolita, language effectively triumphs over shocking content and gives it shades of beauty that perhaps it does not deserve. Words are Humbert’s power, and he uses them to distract, confuse, and charm. He is a pedophile and a murderer, but he builds up elaborate defenses and explanations for his actions, and his language shields him from judgment. Nabokov himself was deeply critical of psychiatry, and Lolita is, in a way, an attack on the field.

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta:the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap,at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”