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Product Description
The Professor is Charlotte Brontës first novel, in which she audaciously inhabits the voice and consciousness of a man, William Crimsworth. Like Jane Eyre he is parentless; like Lucy Snowe in Villette he leaves the certainties of England to forge a life in Brussels. But as a man, William has freedom of action, and as a writer Brontë is correspondingly liberated, exploring the relationship between power and sexual desire.
William's first person narration reveals his attraction to the dominating directress of the girls' school where he teaches, played out in the school's 'secret garden'. Balanced against this is his more temperate relationship with one of his pupils, Frances Henri, in which mastery and submission interplay. The Professor was published only after Charlotte Brontës death; today it gives us a fascinating insight into the first stirrings of her supreme creative imagination.
About the Author
THE OTHER DAY, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance: DEAR CHARLES - I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of us what could be called popu Read the first page
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i found it charming
William continues to perservere through any struggle that life has given him. He holds his head with dignity while his closest relative throws him on the street. Then, he maintains a strong Protestant work ethic in the heavily Catholic city of Brussels. C. Bronte seems to be reflecting upon her own experiences while living in Belgium; however, I found the constant negativity surrounding the Catholic faith to be distracting from her message concering hard work and perserverance. When descibing the girls at his school, William says, "I suspect the root of this precocious impurity so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to be found in the discipline if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome." The comparison between Catholics and Protestants is contant thoughout this book. I found it zenophobic and ignorant while reading.
While a teacher at a girls' finishing school, Crimsworth falls in love twice. First with the coquettish Catholic school mistress, Zoraide Reuter and then with the subserviant Protestant lace-mender, Frances Henri. Frances and Zoraide are as different as night and day; however Crimsworth is attracted to both of them. Again, it seems as though Charlotte is making a comparison between two religions as well as two different types of women with her choices of love interest for William C.
All in all, William Crimsworth is not the character I was expecting to meet. He is pompous, conceited, and non-sympathetic. I suppose there is usually a touch of superiority in most Bronte characters, yet I usually find their circumstances to cause sympathy. I felt none for WC.
One more thing about this addition: there are frequent typographic errors. I suppose that is why it only costs 1.50.
The novel, written in 1846, astonishes by its brevity and realism and by its portrayal of the heroine’s insistence on a working career after her marriage.
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