BLACKNESS IN THE NOVELS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË EN HER SISTERS
Sister Anna Brontë
Husband of Charlotte Brontë
Her sister, but fits the description that Charlotte had too large a mounth.
Charlotte Gainsborough playing an ugly Jane Eyre. She is capable but so much realism is too tiresome after two hours of watching her face.
The latest, is too beautiful. There are furtively shown a black maid, and two black carriage drivers, while all the main characers should be played by brown and black complexioned actors, following the descritions in the book.
A dark skinned Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Gainsborough as Jane Eyre, who was described as 'ugly.'.
Like in the novels of Jane Austen there are plenty of brown and black complexioned personages in the works by Charlotte Brontë. She is almost scientific in her descriptions of the aunt of Jane Eyre who is black and has a strong jaw, meaning subnasal prognathism. To describe the cousin St. John as white Brontë compares him to the Apollo Belvedere. But most blackness is astonischingly found in her juvenalia, her many stories set in Angria, which is Africa. With whites and Blacks interacting.
Its quite interesting that this
important and famous European novel has a Black man at it's center, and the
analysis' usually claim not to really know what the writer Emily Brontë meant.
With my blue blood is black blood theory (1100-1848) it can be tackled. Up till
now, they had usually used a white actor, with some dark make-up to play
Heathcliff. This was also done to Othello, The Moor of Venice for a long time,
but nowadays its always a Black actor. Yet the invective in this play is
misunderstood, as during Shakespeare time there were not so many Blacks to
merit such censure. The question is who are the Blacks, the Moors he was
talking about and how could they be the highest military in Venice, if Blacks
were hated that much. Because both Charlotte and Emily have Blacks and browns
in their books, I suggest all Blacks who read should get into the action. It's
about Blacks. If you can, check out Charlotte's juvenilia about Angria, which
is Africa and all the wonderful stories she wrote down based in Africa. There
should be a connection between Africa, the Brontës en Heathcliff.
http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/spec...manuscript.htm
Angria, to get you started
http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/spec...manuscript.htm
Angria, to get you started
I have just finished watching and analyzing Jane Eyre, with Toby Stephens as Mr. Rochester. There are god knows how many versions of Jane Eyre, and each one as a reading has its merits. But it seems to me that this version stays close to the book and does not omit pieces of the novel, most people and filmmakers do not understand. I was surprised how the conversations of the houseguests were used to convey the subsequent contemporary reviews of Jane Eyre.
Brontë was accused of writing an ‘unchristian’ novel. This is hard to understand for us today as we are usually not aware of the prevailing social strife Brontë was witnessing, and couragely choosing side in. She wrote in 1847, the novel seems to be set in 1840. In 1848 Europe had its ‘last’ social and political revolutions after the French Revolution, and serfs were given equal rights. The trade in human skins of the serfs ended. The elite considered the equalizer structure of society as decided by god, and criticizing the elite was akin as murmuring against god.
From my own research I understand that Europe was a caste society, much like India today, and the non-nobles liberated themselves from this evil system. The complication was color, the nobles, kings and elites were described and self-identified as brown and black of complexion. In this book many persons are described as brown and black of complexion. Mrs. Reed, the evil aunt, is very dark skinned, as is her son who scorns her for her blackness, and she is described by Brontë as having classical African facial traits too. She goes about this in quite a scientific way. Also when she describes St. John as the quintessential white man, a Caucasian, Brontë evokes the Apollo Belvedere to describe his looks.
The movie has Mr. Rochester shown with some light brown goo on the face, but in the book he is quite dark, with black manes. He is not shown disguised as a fortune telling very dark gypsy woman, as audiences would find it hard to believe that his guests or Jane Eyre would not recognize him. But in this movie version he employs a white gypsy woman. Alas, his murderous, crazy wife and her brother are played by dark but white Spanish types, and not Caribbean people of color, that we find in the book. The brother has the same brown goo on the face. There is no Black person in the movie; how is such a thing possible. This means Blacks are kept out.
The analyses is hard, it’s as if Charlotte Brontë is asking forgiveness from whites, as how they were mistreated by Blacks, the elite, the brown skinned masters (1100-1848). Jane Eyre is white, is mistreated by her Black relatives, in some way also by Mr. Rochester, for which he gets punished. But she cannot stay with her own white kind, after tasting the passion of the brown and black people. Brontë shows communist leanings as Jane Eyre divides her fortune in four equal parts to share with her new found cousins. But the newly enriched Jane Eyre shows great forgiveness and marries a Mr. Rochester who is cut to size.
Both Brontë and Jane Austen are writing about the transition (1789-1848), and while Austen is unabashedly for Black Supremacy and status quo, Brontë is more accepting of a change, for equality and justice. Both are fierce feminist.
“Really? I had
no idea. I want to see the reaction to this casting and movie. Heathcliff and Cathy were crazy as hell.”
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And they had
interracial sex too.
WH is about the changing times in Europe, and should be approached as an allegory. The Moors I deal with are those little Blacks on European portraits symbolizing Blue Blood. Othello as a Moor symbolizes something, the nobility, as does Heathcliff. Nelly in WH goes into a speech about where he might come from, and gypsy might be one possibility, but gypsies have and had many complexions. There are also gypsies in Emma by Jane Austen, and they have a symbolic role in this highly allegorical story.
WH is about the changing times in Europe, and should be approached as an allegory. The Moors I deal with are those little Blacks on European portraits symbolizing Blue Blood. Othello as a Moor symbolizes something, the nobility, as does Heathcliff. Nelly in WH goes into a speech about where he might come from, and gypsy might be one possibility, but gypsies have and had many complexions. There are also gypsies in Emma by Jane Austen, and they have a symbolic role in this highly allegorical story.
Just saw yet another version of Jane
Eyre with Timothy Dalton as Mr. Rochester. Too handsome, compared to the Mr.
Rochester as described by Miss Brontë, but what the heck. If the actors are
ugly, like Charlotte Gainsborough, its hell to watch them for 1,5 hours. What
works in a novel, does not always translate well to a movie. Timothy Dalton is
dark, tall and very handsome. He has long legs and this tilt in his hips,
making his buttocks stand out, and you do not get that flatness of ass most of
us do not like to see. They gave him some light brown face goo, yet he is too
white compared to the book of a brown complexioned noble man. Blanche Ingram is
played by a white skinned actress while she is supposed to be dark brown as
well. Rochester’s mad, Black wife and her deceitful brother are still too white
in looks to do justice to the book.
It's details like these which shows that they have revised history, hiding the fact that the Ancien Regime was Black, and Black identified. White Europeans were dominated by brown and black complexioned nobles and other elites till 1848. So when it pops up in a work of literature like Mr. Rochester, Mr. Elton or Othello, they get confused and substitute the roll for a white actor.
It's details like these which shows that they have revised history, hiding the fact that the Ancien Regime was Black, and Black identified. White Europeans were dominated by brown and black complexioned nobles and other elites till 1848. So when it pops up in a work of literature like Mr. Rochester, Mr. Elton or Othello, they get confused and substitute the roll for a white actor.
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[In her latest incarnation Jane Eyre is correctly played by a white actress, but much too pretty. Brontë wrote both Edward Rochester and his 'childbride' Jane Eyre as quite ugly or plain] Is there a good definition of white, who or what is white? I have read Jane Eyre (1847), a visionary novel by Charlotte Brontë, a dark skinned woman, who uses 'scientific' imagery to describe her black, brown and white personages. Off course I'm talking here to people who do not read Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë, but I wish they did, because these ladies were Blacks and they wrote from the perspective of Blacks about the change in views about Black and white. Jane Eyre is a white person, in love with a Black European noble. Brontë is discussing the big change after 1848 in 'race relations' and asks whites for forgiveness. |
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[In her latest incarnation Jane Eyre is correctly played by a white actress, but much too pretty. Brontë wrote both Edward Rochester and his 'childbride' Jane Eyre as quite ugly or plain] Is there a good definition of white, who or what is white? I have read Jane Eyre (1847), a visionary novel by Charlotte Brontë, a dark skinned woman, who uses 'scientific' imagery to describe her black, brown and white personages. Off course I'm talking here to people who do not read Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë, but I wish they did, because these ladies were Blacks and they wrote from the perspective of Blacks about the change in views about Black and white. Jane Eyre is a white person, in love with a Black European noble. Brontë is discussing the big change after 1848 in 'race relations' and asks whites for forgiveness. The latest Mr. Rochester is too handsome, and white, which is wrong: he was Brown, with huge black eyes and black raven hair. Jamie Bell is Mr. St. John Rivers. The epitome of whiteness, a perfect example of the white race, in Jane Eyre. Yet this actor has protruding ears, and is not blond in real life. Brontë again is quite historical and scientific in her description of his whiteness, his head shape; ‘like a Greek statue.’ Still she alludes to the fact that British whites do not look like this in general, stating how artificial and fake the ‘Greek’ based definition of whites is. |
St
John resemblance to the Apollo of Belvedere is mentioned at least twice in Jane
Eyre. When these people defined the white race, to give whites human
status,(1760) they measured not real people's heads, but Greek statues!
ally Hawkins as Mrs Reed. Brontë describes her as very dark of complexion, with a strongly built underjaw, meaning subnasal prognathism, meaning Mrs. Reed had classical African facial traits as well as very dark skin. She is like the image of the Moor, and symbolises the blackness and noble superiority of this family, which tortures white Jane Eyre.
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