Jane Eyre as Bronte's Autobiography

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Jane Eyre as Charlotte Brontё’s autobiography It is not unusual for authors to write themselves into their protagonists. Intentionally or not, many authors have written their autobiographies this way. These kinds of autobiographies are usually enriched with elements of fiction and as a rule they are meant to be just made up stories. More often than not, readers view books only on that level, unless they are familiar with the author’s life. A great example of a book being somewhere on the border of fiction and autobiography is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontё. As it was first published under the name of Currer Bell, the readers had a harder time to make the connection with the author when it was published, as they thought it was written by a man, but some regarding places (where the story took place) were made. Today, knowing Brontё’s life story, we can draw many parallels between the author herself and her heroine. First, it may seem, that it was not Brontё’s intention to write real life into her greatest work, but to use it merely as an inspiration. Her friend Elizabeth Gaskell (2001:262) has said: “We were talking about the description of Lowood school, and she was saying that she was not sure whether she should have written it, if she had been aware how instantaneously it would have been identified with Cowan Bridge.” I think it is only understandable that using real life experience gives a more believable description and due to that it is more enjoyable to readers. So when she used her own school as a basis to the one that Eyre went, she did not expect readers to recognise Cowan Bridge – the school she actually went to. She described the mood and surrounding she had experienced herself because it was familiar to her and she was trying to get her readers to feel the same she had felt. Her life experience was her inspiration. Based on that, one may simply write

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