Charlotte vs Emily, Battle of the Brontes

An Unfortunate Comparison

I had the great misfortune of being introduced to Jane Eyre at the same time as Wuthering Heights. The class was made to think about the books in terms of each other. It was ultimately very polemical. People chose one over the other. They were no longer seen as separate entities.

A comment upon Byronic figures: Rochester and Heathcliff are our Byronic figures. The Brontes have very different reactions to this attraction though. Emily creates the force that is Heathcliff and we can only stand by to watch as that force builds momentum to its inevitable conclusion. Charlotte creates Rochester and smashes him to pieces to the point where he is controlled by a woman. Very different responses to the attraction of a Byronic figure.

Jane's reliability as a narrator is brought into question over a few hundred pages. One character in Wuthering Heights has us questioning narrative reliability and observing narrative tricks with far fewer lines.

Wuthering Heights does not finish with bible thumping over the head.

Really, the list is endless. Because the books are so different.

I could not have a proper appreciation of Jane Eyre if I tried, but I do feel like there is some value to comparing the books like that. Especially considering two sisters wrote them around the same time. No competition was ever had between siblings, right?

I would prefer to compare Jane to Heathcliff if I were forced to compare. As they are our central characters. Jane could be seen as a Byronic hero but if she is she drags the title down quite a bit.

Jane Eyre is a good book. A good story. For me that is all it is.

Wuthering Heights, on the other hand, is a great book. There is a quality to Emily Bronte's novel that I will only call Beauty. It is lacking in Charlotte Bronte's. The Beauty of Emily's work stops you in your tracks, it is that moment of the sublime, of the truth, that moment of awe. I do not like comparing the books, but if I have to I'm afraid Jane Eyre takes the back seat of a really long bus.

Jane Eyre is very specific to certain topics. Wuthering Heights, though guilty of the same specificity, has something eternal in it. Dark or otherwise. And so, I lay Jane down to rest. She can go to her St. John Rivers's God in peace. While I, happily, follow Heathcliff to that secret passage between the graves.