Charlotte and Emily A Novel of the Bront}}s [Paperback]

From an obscure country parsonage came three extraordinary sisters, who defied the outward bleakness of their lives to create the most brilliant literary work of their time. Now, in an astonishingly daring novel by the acclaimed Jude Morgan, the genius of the haunted Bront?s is revealed and the sisters are brought to full, resplendent life: Emily, who turned from the world to the greater temptations of the imagination; gentle Anne, who suffered the harshest perception of the stifling life forced upon her; and the brilliant, uncompromising, and tormented Charlotte, who longed for both love and independence, and learned their ultimate price.

1. The novel opens with the death of Maria Branwell Bront?, Charlotte and Emily's mother. How does this scene influence your interpretation of the rest of the story? Why do you believe the book begins with this event?
2. Why do you think the novel closes with Charlotte at the sea, with only a mention of her death in the Author's Note?
3. At the end of the first chapter, upon their mother's death, &they draw together in a peculiarly precise huddle, as if they stand on a rock, just big enough for them, above an encircling sea. Water as metaphor is used throughout the novel, but its presence is particularly felt in the first and final chapters. Considering the Bront?s lived on the English moors, far from the ocean, why do you think this metaphor is so pervasive?
4. At the beginning of the story, although Branwell's arithmetic proves otherwise, Charlotte feels the safety of being the middle child, surrounded on all sides by the love of her sisters and brother. When her eldest sisters die, Charlotte is suddenly thrust into a world where there was no longer any middle to inhabit, only edge, brunt, naked extremity. How does this shift in order transform Charlotte? How are Emily and Anne similarly shaped by their positions in the family?
5. Discuss the Bront? family dynamics. What was Patrick Bront?'s legacy to lã7