My Vocal Warm Up Plan

My Vocal Warm Up Plan (Brief)

Body

·         Stand neutrally and be aware of where the tension is held in your body. Try to release it by closing your eyes, relaxing and releasing the tension.

·         Stretch your body and do some big yawns, using your whole body

·         Stretch up tall, then drop down, hang and roll up slowly from the base of the spine. Repeat 3x.

·         Shake out the whole body (rubber chicken)

·         Walk around the space with good posture, swinging your arms.

Breath

·         Breathe in deep through the nose, hold for a few seconds and then release slowly. Repeat 5x

·         Breathe in through the nose, hold and breathe out over the count of 6, 8 and 10. Repeat 2x each. (or progress to longer when you’re ready)

·         Breathe in through the nose, hold and breathe out on a humming noise. Repeat 3x

·         Breathe in, hold and breathe out on a hum again, this time going from high to low like a siren. Repeat 3x.

·         Pant for a few minutes without lifting your shoulders

·         Purse your lips like you’re sucking through a straw and imagine the breath going to the bottom of your stomach and filling a tube around your waist. Hold for a few seconds and then release in three short breaths. Repeat 5x.

Resonance

·         Tap all over your head

·         Tap across the bridge of your nose and massage it

·         Lightly pummel chest while making an ‘aah’ sound

·         Hum into your chest, lightly pummelling chest. Keep humming for a few minutes, changing note every now and again.

Articulation

·         Poke out the tongue and stretch it in a north-south-east-west position outside the mouth

·         Repeat the exercise inside the mouth on the outside of the teeth

·         Massage the face, nose and cheeks

·         Massage and loosen the jaw, releasing tension from it

·         Scrunch up face tight and then stretch it out wide (pumpkin and raisin). Alternate between the two for a few minutes.

·         Pretend to chew toffee for a few minutes

·         Practise tongue twisters

My Vocal Warm Up Plan (Detailed)

Body
I have chosen to start my vocal warm up with a section focusing on the whole body because every part of the body is essential for creating and strengthening the voice.

·         Stand neutrally and be aware of where the tension is in your body. Try to release it by relaxing, closing your eyes and releasing the tension.

This is the first step in my programme. I’ve chosen to start with this because it is important for an actor to have a completely relaxed and neutral body to start with, like a blank canvas. Standing still and quiet for a few minutes makes it easier to identify where you hold the tension in your body and being able to release it.

·         Stretch your body and do some big yawns, using your whole body

Stretching out the body is another important step towards having a relaxed and neutral body and posture, which makes it easier to achieve a strong vocal delivery. Yawning in specific is a good stretch for resonance as it stretches the soft palate and pharynx.  

·         Stretch up tall, then drop down, hang and roll up slowly from the base of the spine 3x

The spinal roll is a stretch that I’ve found really helpful for releasing tension and warming up the body. I’ve chosen to include three in my vocal plan at this stage to really make sure it does its job energising the body and releasing tension.

·         Shake out the whole body

This is one of the final points in the body section of my vocal warm up. This is to energise and loosen up the body after you’ve released all the tension and stretched out.

·         Walk around the space with good posture, swinging your arms.

Finally, this is to put into motion your relaxed and warmed up body. Good posture is key for good vocal delivery, as it helps the air flow when you breathe.

Breath

Breathing is one of the most important parts of performing. I’ve chosen to focus quite strongly on the breathing section of the warm up because that is my personal area for improvement vocally.

·         Breathe in deep through the nose, hold for a few seconds and then release slowly. Repeat 5x.

I’ve started the breath section of my vocal plan with a few simple deep breaths, to wake up the lungs and diaphragm. It also will increase focus for the rest of the warm up.

·         Breathe in through the nose, hold and breathe out over the count of 6, 8 and 10. Repeat 2x each (or progress to longer when you’re ready)

Breathing over an increasing count like this will help slowly increase control of the body and breath capacity. Breaking yourself in by starting with a simple six second count and then progressing to longer breaths makes the longer breaths easier. Also, you can build up to longer breaths when you personally are ready.

·         Breathe in through the nose, hold and breathe out on a humming noise. Repeat 3x

Now you’ve started increasing your breath capacity, adding a hum will strengthen breath and resonance at the same time. Humming is good for resonance and the vocal folds, and humming on a long breath is a good way to practise controlling your breath and resonance at the same time, as you will need to in performance.

·         Breathe in, hold and breathe out on a hum again, this time going from high to low like a siren. Repeat 3x.

This exercise is really helpful for practising controlling pitch. Doing it three times means the control should increase each time and become easier.

·         Pant for a few minutes without lifting your shoulders

Panting is a great exercise for practising control of your diaphragm. Having good control of your diaphragm means you will be able to take in more air for a more controlled and strong vocal delivery. It’s important to make sure your shoulders don’t lift up because when you’re breathing with the diaphragm all the action should happen from the ribcage down.

·         Purse your lips like you’re sucking through a straw and imagine the breath going to the bottom of your stomach and filling a tube around your waist. Hold for a few seconds and then release in three short breaths. Repeat 5x.

This exercise will strengthen the intercostal muscles and make the diaphragm stronger and more pliable, which will give you a stronger more controlled vocal delivery, and allow you to project better. Practising this exercise over time will also increase your breath capacity. This is one of my personal goals, which is why I’ve included more of this exercise than any others.

Resonance

·         Tap all over your head

These exercises in the resonance section of the plan are to open up and start exercising your resonators for a more powerful and resonant voice – tapping all over your skull and head will start to wake up your head resonator.

·         Tap across the bridge of your nose and massage it

Tapping and massaging over the bridge of your nose and that area of your face will wake up and open up your nasal resonator. You can make sounds during this exercise and the one above and try and feel where the sound is resonating.

·         Lightly pummel chest while making and ‘aah’ sound

Tapping your chest will wake up your chest resonator in order for you to exercise it. Making the ‘aah’ sound while you do it will release any excess air as well as beginning to get your chest resonator working with your voice.

·         Hum into your chest, lightly pummelling chest again. Keep humming for a few minutes, changing note every now and again.

Humming is a great way to improve the resonance of the voice. Humming from your chest a few minutes a day will wake up and strengthen your chest resonator which will give you a richer and more resonant, powerful voice. Changing the note of the hum makes sure you have good resonance with different pitches.

Articulation

·         Poke out the tongue and stretch it in a north-south-east-west position outside the mouth

·         Repeat the exercise inside the mouth on the outside of the teeth

Both of the above exercises I have included to stretch out and exercise the tongue, which is essential for having good articulation.

·         Massage the face, nose and cheeks

·         Massage and loosen the jaw, releasing tension from it

Massaging and working the muscles in your face is a really good way to relax any tension you hold there. It is important to focus especially on the jaw, as it can often hold a lot of tension. Once it’s slackened, it’s much easier to relax again and use.

·         Scrunch up face tight and then stretch it out wide (pumpkin and raisin). Alternate between the two for a few minutes.

Much like the exercises above, doing the pumpkin/raisin face with enthusiasm and switching between them works and loosens up the muscles in your face, jaw and mouth for better articulation and projection.

·         Pretend to chew toffee for a few minutes.

Pretending to animatedly chew toffee for a few minutes will work the jaw and facial muscles, allowing you to open and work the mouth and jaw easier, which will allow better articulation and projection.

·         Practise different tongue twisters

Practising tongue twisters is an excellent way to work on improving your articulation. For my vocal plan I will do a few general tongue twisters such as ‘red leather yellow leather’ with every time I practise the plan, as well as adding in a few longer ones to target specific problem areas with my voice as I come across them. For instance, sometimes I don’t pronounce the T sound enough so a tongue twister with a lot of T sounds would be helpful.


Personal Vocal Analysis

In general, my voice is quite strong but still has some definite areas for improvement. My voice is naturally at a fairly medium tone, more on the low side, and tends to get lower when I’m projecting, especially in performance. I think projecting itself is one of my personal vocal strengths. It sometimes takes me a while of warming up to get to a level I’m happy with but most of the performance feedback I’ve received from drama teachers and audience members is that I can usually be heard well.

Articulation is another strength of mine most of the time, especially in performance. My voice is generally clear and precise. However, sometimes I can under pronounce the ‘T’ sound when I’m not focused enough.  

One area for improvement in my voice would be breathing – I don’t have very good breath capacity at the moment and sometimes struggle with breath during performance, for instance, not taking a long enough breath in a pause and then struggling to deliver a line because of it. I’m working on breathing exercises to correct this.

I also often talk quite fast, which I need to work on, as this could compromise clarity of speech in performance and make me harder to understand. I try and slow myself down to a better pace in performance but I think that’s definitely something I need to work on.


Inflection and intonation are also things I need to work on. I don’t always put stress/emphasis on certain words – especially verbs – where I should and that can mean lines don’t have the same weight they would if I did. I struggle a bit with intonation during big chunks of text like monologues or duologues, and sometimes I can revert to my default way of saying things and that makes everything sound to much the same and not very interesting.  

Pomona Research

Fatalism Vs Determinism

Fatalism is the idea that peoples lives and events that happen around the world are all fated. This can stretch to the belief that humans are completely powerless in their own lives: that everything we do is part of the universal order or 'destiny' and we can't choose or change it ourselves.

One belief that is linked to fatalism is acceptance - that because our lives are fated to happen and we are powerless to stop them, we should just accept everything that happens instead of resisting or 'fighting' it. Some people believe that completely accepting everything our lives will be more peaceful and happy. However, this can also be seen as defeatist.

I think a way this links to Pomona is through the character Fay. When we first meet her at the brothel she just accepts her daily life and gets on with it, but eventually she starts to fight against it when she finds out about the girls disappearing.

Fatalists often believe that because fate or destiny has been set, it has been set by something (or someone). This can be a kind of omnipotent being, energy or force such as a god or the universe. I think this can be represented in Pomona as the figure in the Cthulhu mask, as when he is setting and messing up the Rubik's Cubes it's a representation of him arranging the lives of the characters - setting their fate.

The fact that the Cthulhu figure is always there watching also links, because fatalists who think of destiny being written by some higher force sometimes think of their god or energy watching over them.

Determinism is the contrasting belief that people's lives are pushed by their actions - that everything that happens is a result of choice and past events. However, some determinism also says that the things that happen are so much a result of past events that humans still have limited to no free will.

One thing that most determinists can agree on is that the future relies on the past and past decisions, so essentially a 'can't go back' mentality, that people have to be held accountable for their choices and eventually always will be.

This can link to Pomona through the symbolism of the RPG games and the way they're decided completely by choice - I think Keaton is a really big symbol of determinism, because we mostly see her making her own choices in Charlie's game, and she threatens Gale with being taken to the organ farming place as a result of Gale's choices and past.  

However, Pomona then becomes more fatalist when Ollie's journey is shown through the game and she can't go where she wants to. The imagery of the Rubik's Cubes, the Cthulhu 'god' figure and the characters all rolling dice are very fatalist.

Something that determinists often debate about is the concept of nature vs nurture - whether we are biologically 'made' a certain way or whether our experiences make us that way. I think this is really interesting because one way it's symbolised a lot is through twins, because they have the same nature and the same nurture, generally - like Ollie and her twin sister.

However, there is a popular view that mixes both fatalism and determinism - people that believe fate pushes us but we can still make our own choices. This says that you can't control what you're given in life but you can control how you deal with it and what you do with it.

Bronte Performance Evaluation

Bronte Performance Evaluation

Overall, I believe that the performance of Bronte went well and the audience not only enjoyed it, but took away several of the important messages and political themes.

Basics

One of the strengths of the performance was how well everybody remembered their lines, especially during the first two runs. Wednesday’s show had a few stumbles over the beginnings of lines and words, but I don’t think they were very noticeable and probably would have actually made the delivery seem more realistic and in the moment. The whole cast was very good at helping each other out when someone seemed to forget or make a mistake, remaining in character and saying something to remind them.

I think that another performance strength was the scene transitions – everybody was focused and ready for their entrances and exists on time. One point that especially stood out to me and was mentioned heavily in audience feedback was the transitions between ‘parts’ of the play and the changes between the different actors playing the same character. I think that the transitions were slick and smooth, especially the parts where the actors playing the same character say the same lines in unison – everybody was perfectly in time and from an audience perspective it looked effective and interesting. The audience said it was really clear who the characters were.

The pace and timing were good. The first part was around 19 minutes, the second 30 and the third under 45, which were our goals for timing. This worked really well as it helped to keep the audience engaged in the action and not get bored.

However, there were a few technical issues during the performance. Several times the Bertha music started before we expected it to, but those of us playing Bertha adapted and entered as it started, so I think looked smooth and intentional to the audience. Another issue was when the bell got stuck during the scene between Charlotte and Hagar, but the actors on stage waited and carried on as normal, demonstrating real focus and professionalism.

Style

I think that overall the performance achieved our aim of mixing Brechtian devices with Naturalistic acting and some expressionism. Everybody did really well with the Brecht techniques, for instance, saying some lines blankly out to the audience such as Charlotte’s ‘always everyone else’s fault, never your own, never’ and breaking the fourth wall for moments, including Branwell telling the audience ‘it is the fashion now to have tails and part them as you sit’ and Emily confiding in the audience that there is ‘a little room at the top of the house which I have made my own’. However, I think that everyone managed to achieve elements of naturalism and find some lovely moments of truth in their scenes.

The play had several clear themes – equality, women’s oppression, sexual oppression, the pressures of family and society, and imagination/writing. I think that our performances definitely demonstrated and emphasized all of these, and effectively made the audience think about the relevance of these topics to their lives today. A few members of the audience said that the play did make them consider women’s issues and male pressure today, and how these topics are still relevant in society.

I definitely think that the aim of our show was achieved. Performing Bronte in a Brechtian way meant that the audience were supposed to take away more about female oppression and its effects on both genders than they were about the personal struggles of the characters. Though most of the audience agreed they felt both, what they were talking about for days afterwards was the political messages.

Actor Skills

One particular strength in characterisation that I noticed was how well the actors playing the same characters showed that they were the same character. While each actor brought something a bit different to the role, there seemed to be a certain energy that all the actors kept going the whole way through. For example, Ciara, Emily P and I collaboratively came up with certain idiosyncrasies Charlotte would keep her whole life – clenching her fists at her sides, rubbing her forehead when she was stressed, and sometimes standing on her toes.

However, I felt that you could also clearly see the characters growth, even though it’s shown through different actors. For instance, I think that Emily B, Becky and Breanna’s portrayals of Anne really demonstrated her personal growth over the course of her life, from a youngest child looking up to her elder siblings, developing a more socially conscious and outspoken side, and becoming the ‘first feminist’ that she is famous for being today.

I think that characterisation in people playing more than one character was also really good as it was very clear that they were different people – for instance Emily’s portrayal of Anne was very different to Cathy, and Erin’s for Emily and Nelly, and it was clear when they were different people and the audience picked up on that.

A group strength during the performance of Bronte was how well everybody projected – the audience agreed that they could hear everyone, and the actors could usually be heard from backstage and in the green room. However, a personal vocal weakness I felt I showed in Bronte was inconsistency. Although I projected and articulated well during the first few performances, clarity dropped in one performance.

There was also a big variation between how I delivered different lines. One line in particular that wasn’t very clear was Jane’s final line, ‘I came back to you sir’, which I struggled to deliver out to the audience because of the position of Jane against Rochester’s back. However, I think that I projected particularly well during both Charlotte’s first imaging of Bertha (‘She feels as if her skin is splitting open’) and Jane’s ‘I will atone’ speech. Both of these were delivered out to the audience from a block, which made it a lot easier to project clearly.

Clarity of movement is also something that I feel could have been improved during the performance. Several times during the final performance I made an awkward blunder with the set, for instance, tripping slightly on a table or chair. I also nearly tripped standing up on the block as Jane Eyre at one point when my dress got caught under my heel kneeling down. From watching the performance back I can see that the mistakes weren't that noticeable, but they threw me off a little bit.

Ensemble

One of the strengths as an ensemble I think really stood out was the way all the girls collaborated to bring Bertha to life. Everyone committed to the physical theatre aspect really well and threw themselves into it, and several of the most visually interesting and effective moments of the performance were Bertha moments with the girls twisting and stretching together or say words together. It was really haunting.

However, our team work and support on stage could have been improved in other moments. For example, in the first scene both Erin and I had costume malfunctions that we (and Emily B) could have helped each other with at several points throughout the scene. I think that we just panicked in the moment and tried to go on smoothly, and although the costume malfunctions weren’t that noticeable to the audience all the time, I think they definitely threw my confidence for a couple of scenes.

A big strength of the performance was how visually interesting all of the scenes looked. Watching Bronte back I was amazed at some of the stage pictures - particularly all of the tableaux moments, the boarding school scene with Emily and Charlotte on the 'attic' block, and the scene where Charlotte is torn between Bertha and Jane, with Branwell and Rochester in the background. With the lighting, the whole thing looked very visually powerful and I thought had a lot of impact.

For the first couple of performances, the energy of the play was really lively and dynamic, and the audience said they found it engaging from the beginning and throughout. However, energy dropped in Wednesday’s performance, especially in the first section of the play. This could have had a negative lasting effect on the show, as the first few lines should have instantly attracted and kept the audiences attention. I feel that this meant act one was slower than it could have been and less involving, which could have lead to the audience becoming bored. However, by act two the pace and energy picked up and drew the audience back into the story.

We were all really focused during the performance, both backstage and onstage, and the overall execution of the performance was really engaging and interesting and the audience really enjoyed it.

Bronte Character Work and Research

Character Work



Character Fact files 

Charlotte Bronte: 

• Born 21st April 1816 in Thornton, West Riding of Yorkshire
• Died 31 March 1855 in Haworth, West Riding of Yorkshire aged 38 of acute morning sickness. 
• Father was Patrick Bronte (formerly Brunty), an Irish Anglican priest and her mother was his wife Maria Branwell
• Charlotte was the third child after Maria and Elizabeth Bronte. 
• In 1820 when Charlotte was four, the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a small village on the Yorkshire moors where Patrick had been made curate of St Michaels and All Angels Church.
• Charlotte’s mother died of cancer on September 15th 1821 when Charlotte was only five. 
• Charlotte was sent to Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire along with Maria, Elizabeth and Emily in August 1824. Conditions at the school were poor and thought to have caused the deaths of Charlotte’s older sisters Maria and Elizabeth who both died of tuberculosis in 1825.
• After Maria and Elizabeth died, Charlotte and Emily were pulled from the school. It’s thought that Charlotte probably used the poor conditions at the school for the basis of the fictional Lowood School in her book Jane Eyre. 
• At home Charlotte, now the eldest, acted as the ‘motherly friend and guardian of her younger siblings’
• Charlotte and her siblings began writing from childhood, creating their own fictional words and writing about the lives and struggles of the people in their imaginary kingdoms. Charlotte and Branwell wrote about a country they created together called Angria. 
• Charlotte continued her education between 1831 and 183 at Roe Head School in Mirfield where she met her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey. 
• In 1833 Charlotte wrote a novella called The Green Dwarf under the pseudonym Wellesley. 
• Charlotte worked as a teacher at Roe Head from 1835 to 1838.
• In 1839 she took her first governess job in Yorkshire. She was employed by the Sidgwick family where one of the children she had to look after was badly behaved and once threw a bible at Charlotte’s head. This was probably the inspiration for a scene at the beginning of Jane Eyre where Jane’s cousin throws a book at her. 
• Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels in 1842 to go to boarding school run by Constantin Heger and his wife Claire. Charlotte taught English there and Emily taught music. 
• Charlotte went back home for a while after her aunt died but returned to the school in 1843 where she became deeply homesick and fell in love with the married Mr Heger. She returned home in 1844.
• She wrote many letters to Heger, but he did not always reply.
• In May 1846 Charlotte, Emily and Anne published a collection of poems under fake male names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (so their initials were all the same).
• Charlotte’s first manuscript, The Professor, did not get published, a publisher wrote her back saying they would be interested if Currer Bell wrote anything longer. This encouraged her to keep writing. 
• She wrote Jane Eyre in response and it was published in 1847, six weeks after she’d finished it. 
• In 1848 Charlotte began writing a second novel, but it was left unfinished when the Bronte family suffered the deaths of three siblings within eight months: in September, Branwell died of bronchitis, alcoholism and drug addiction although Charlotte believed it was tuberculosis, Emily died in December of tuberculosis gained from a cold, and Anne died of the same disease in May 1849. Charlotte was too grief-stricken to write through all this. 
• After Anne’s death Charlotte started writing again to deal with her grief, and published a novel called Shirley, which was about the role of women and the industrial revolution, things that Anne was passionate about. 
• In 1853 Charlotte published her third and final novel, Vilette.
• Arthur Bell Nichols, her fathers curate, asked Charlotte to marry him and she initially turned him down, but became more attracted to him and in Janurary 1854 accepted his proposal. 
• Charlotte and Bell Nichols had their Honeymoon in Banagher in Ireland.
• Charlotte became pregnant soon after the wedding, but her health declined rapidly. She and her unborn child died on 31st March 1855, three week before her 39th birthday. Her death was officially caused by morning sickness. 

Looks 

Physically, Charlotte was described as being very short and delicate-looking, with a serious, quaint, old-fashioned air about her. She was pale and plain-faced with brown hair.

Home - Haworth and The Haworth Moors

Novels

Jane Eyre – 
Jane Eyre was Charlotte’s first and most famous novel. It tells the life story of an orphan called Jane Eyre, from her childhood abuse at the hands of her aunt and cousins and her education at school to becoming a governess and falling in love with her employer, Mr Rochester, who is secretly already married to a madwoman he keeps locked in the attic.

Jane Eyre is written in a first-person perspective, and it was the first book to have a first person
perspective from a female character. It was a ground breaking book for the time, as it showed Jane having ‘selfish’ thoughts about her own desires and feelings, something women were not supposed to do. The moral dilemma of the romance between Jane and a much richer, married man was also very controversial, as well as the way it questioned society and classism.

The book was revolutionary. It was the first novel to have the sort of emotional intensity that was only ever seen in poetry before. Charlotte Bronte has been called ‘the first historian of the private consciousness’ because of it.

While the book was seen as scandalous at first, it was incredibly popular and gained widespread acclaim. Today it is considered a classic, and is the tenth most popular book of all time according to
BBC’s Big Read survey.

Shirley –

Shirley was Charlotte’s second book, about the industrial depression after the first world war and the uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industries. Unlike Jane Eyre, Shirley is written in the third-person and isn’t as emotionally intense or poetically written.

While Charlotte was writing Shirley, Branwell, Emily and Anne died. It is believed that the main character in the novel, Caroline Helstone (a romantic heroine who dislikes social hypocrisy and wants to make a difference) was loosely based on Anne and that the character was supposed to die in the book but Charlotte changed her mind after the deaths of her siblings. The character Shirley – an independent heiress who wants to help people with her money – is thought to be what Charlotte thought her sister Emily would be if she’d been born to a wealthier family.

Shirley was much more accepted by general society and didn’t cause the same level of scandal as Jane Eyre, although the verdict was that some conversations in the book were ‘coarse’ or improper.
The book is what made Shirley become a popular women’s name, as before it was a rare and mostly male name.

Vilette –

Vilette was the last novel Charlotte wrote before she died, and was written in the first person like Jane Eyre. It tells the story of a girl called Lucy Snowe who travels from her family home in England to the fictional French town Vilette to work as a nanny at a girls boarding school, where she falls in love. This was most likely inspired by Charlotte’s time at Heger’s boarding school in Brussels. Vilette was critically acclaimed and sometimes believed to be Charlotte’s best novel.

Things Charlotte Says About Herself

‘Perhaps I could (imagine being remembered). Perhaps I was always waiting, preparing.’ – page 6

‘It was not my choice to go away. I didn’t choose to spend my every moment with a spoilt child and a miserable baby. To be ordered about til I was dead on my feet, day after day. I did it for you.’ – page 12

‘Something almost repulsive’ – page 22

‘At first I felt only shame that I had ventured to trouble you. A painful heat rose to my face when I thought of the quires of paper I had covered with what once gave me so much delight. The letter I wrote you was senseless trash from beginning to end. I have since endeavoured not only to observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfil but to feel deeply interested in them. It does not always work, for sometimes when I am sewing I would much rather be reading or writing but I try to deny myself. I trust I shall never more feel ambitious to see my name in print.’ – page 22-23

‘We are not so rich that we can live by our own rules. We must soon make our way in the world. We must earn our own living or else be a burden to others.’ – page 24

‘I could not stop because they stirred in my heart such feeling.’ – page 34

‘I wish I was your dog so I could follow you and smell you and eat the scraps that you throw under the table and lick your boots and have you beat me.’ – page 38

A greater fool than I never breathed the breath of life. Me, a favourite with him? Me, gifted with the power of pleasing him? Me, of importance to him in any way? Look at that tired, uneven, charmless face. Whenever in future you imagine he thought well of you, take out your mirror and look at yourself.’ – page 39

‘Can I do nothing in this house without being stared at as if I were some kind of freak, some kind of lunatic?’ – page 39

‘I have had no life. Had to live half-starved. Had to sacrifice everything so that you could...’ – page 51

‘We must watch you again and again, mess it up waste it, throw it all away. All we wanted was for you to succeed. To be a success.’ – page 51

‘All my life I have longed to see that magnificent city. To be a part of the great tumult of life.’ – page 68

‘Maybe it is compensation for having lived so very little. But I do know, when it works there is no
place on this earth I would rather be.’ – page 74

‘It isn’t a choice. I didn’t choose.’ – page 74

‘When I first read the poems I felt... I knew that this touched deep. Went beyond. That these strange savage prayers were of a kind unknown to me. That words had been made to hold all that is, that was, that could be. That could be, were we not as we are. And I felt a sickness, a burning shame, because I knew that my own attempts to fly had been as nothing. Everything I had ever written was like a bird that thinks it’s cage the universe I was trapped, tethered, bound. But you have flown and I have watched you and in watching come to know, to know what it might be to fly. For I have loved and loathed you but you have been the nearest thing to my heart in all this world.’ – page 76

‘I long for sleep but I dream of them, not as they were in health but in sickness and suffering. I have been twice to London this year hoping to escape but it little suited my purpose. I have become a celebrity. Everywhere I go I am looked at and talked about. I have lost my cloak of invisibility. I will never again be free to witness, to watch the world. I will ever more be a curiosity, the author of Jane Eyre.’ – page 79

‘I am not young or beautiful and have long since grown out of fantasies of a perfect union.’ - page 81

‘I shall endeavour to be a good wife. I do not, as you know, love you,  but it will be my hope that through perseverance and attention to duty my feelings will, in the fullness of time, ripen towards...’ – page 81

‘Much as I value my writing, it has come, perhaps, at the expense of other things.’ – page 81

‘All my life I have longed to be admired, to be revered for some extraordinary achievement. And yet, the more I live, the more I come to suspect that happiness is not found in the praise.’ – page 81

‘To speak truth my sufferings are very great.’ - page 82


Things Others Say About Charlotte

‘She looks too fat. Too miserable. Too pinched.’ – actresses, page 3-4

‘Not that they were pretty. Not at all.’ - actress, page 4

‘We have no mother. Can none of us remember her. That’s why our books are peopled by orphans. Children abandoned, lost, alone.’ – actresses, page 4

‘We’re so unusually close, so uneasy with strangers’ – actress, page 4

‘We have little patience with children’ – actress, page 4

‘My sister Charlotte, after my death, rewrote my poems and burned my second novel.’ – Emily, page 6

‘You don’t even know what a musket is or how many men are in a battalion’ – Branwell, page 18

‘You’re the eldest now and must look after the others.’ – Patrick, page 20

‘The boys at church call you the weasel’ – Branwell, page 21

‘My sister once described herself in her diary as something almost repulsive’ – Anne, page 21-22

‘At the age of twelve she told her family she would never marry.’ – Emily, page 22

‘Despite or perhaps because of her plain face she wanted from childhood to be forever known.’ – Anne, page 22

‘She wanted to exit not as flesh and bone, not as eye and cheek and tooth and hair but as word. To be invisible. To steal unseen into your innermost chamber, free from her unfortunate body. Free to be whatever she might imagine.’ – Emily, page 22

‘The more she is engaged in her proper duties the less time she will have for it even as recreation’ – Anne, page 22

‘At boarding school Charlotte came top of her class and won a medal for good behaviour.’ – actress, page 23

‘Here you are in your classroom. You sit and look at your tutor as you are bid. You wait obediently to be dismissed.’ – Heger, page 37

‘Perhaps it is well that she is to go away.’ – Anne, page 39

‘disgrace! Digrace. Listen how she says the word like filth in the mouth that needs to be spat out for fear of contamination.’ – Branwell, page 50

‘Defiled. Oh yes, and wouldn’t you like to know what that felt like. Wouldn’t you? You think I don’t know. You think I can’t smell it. That hot little itch, under the bedclothes. What you wouldn’t do to be defiled. How sweet it sounds.’ – Branwell, page 50

‘You’re rotten. Rotting inside. Rank. Reeking. Stinking of – loneliness.’ – Branwell, page 51

‘You wanted me to fail.’ – Branwell, page 51

'Every morsel that I ate was taken from your plate. Every bite, stolen. Taken from under your nose. Snatched away.’ – Branwell, page 52

‘You want too much. Too much of me.’ – Emily, page 75

‘Perhaps in death Emily could be hers, to protect, to possess as she never had been in life.’ – Anne, page 77

‘When Charlotte published a new volume of collected poems later that year, virtually every one of her sister’s poems was altered.’ – Emily, page 78

‘Charlotte died just nine months after her marriage. Three weeks before her thirty ninth birthday.’ – Emily, page 81

‘She was pregnant and suffering an acute form of morning sickness. A condition that might easily be cured today.’ – Anne, page 82



Jane Eyre:

• Heroine of Charlotte’s novel Jane Eyre
• Jane’s parents both died of typhus before the novel starts, and she lives with her Uncle Reed and his family at Gateshead Hall. Her uncle was kind to her but after he died her aunt treats her as a burden and abuses her, as do her cousins. 
• Jane is incredibly unhappy and feels alone, longing for a family. She longs to find ‘kindred spirits’. 
• After her cousin throws a book at her (inspired by a child Charlotte was a governess for) and knocks her down Jane is locked in the room where her uncle died and becomes hysterical thinking she saw his ghost, so her aunt sends for a doctor to see her. Jane tells the doctor how unhappy she is and he suggests she is sent to school.
• Jane attends Lowood School, a charity school for poor and orphaned girls, where the conditions are poor and she is mistreated by her teachers. Her only friend dies in her arms during a typhus epidemic that was probably inspired by Charlotte’s sisters death at their first school.
• After six years as a student and two as a teacher at Lowood Jane leaves and gets a job as a governess to a French girl Adele at Thornfield Hall
• While Jane is walking to town she helps a man back onto his horse after it throws him off without knowing that he’s actually Mr Rochester, the master of the house
• After their first meeting, Rochester and Jane spend more time together 
• Jane notices odd things happening at Thornfield such as strange laughter, an attack on a house guest and a fire which she saves Rochester from by waking him up and throwing water on the fire. 
• Rochester proposes to Jane but during their wedding it’s revealed that Rochester is already married to Bertha, a madwoman he keeps locked in the attic, because her father tricked him into marrying her for money
• Jane refuses Rochester’s pleas to be with him because of her own strong moral compass and instead gets employed elsewhere
• However during their separation she dreams of Rochester calling for her and returns to Thornfield to find the house burned down by Bertha’s suicide and Rochester blinded and bitter. She and Rochester reunite and are eventually married, and he gains his eyesight back just in time to see their new baby
• Jane is mostly categorised by her strong morals and sense of inner integrity which she sticks to the whole novel, although it is challenged several times. She’s a model of ‘goodness’ and represents everything Charlotte thinks she should be and wants to be
• Physically Jane is described as being small and delicate and brown haired like Charlotte, but much more conventionally feminine and attractive – what Charlotte wants to be or thinks she ‘should’ be.

Things Jane Says About Herself

‘I have been vain, deluded, drunk with desire. The more unloved, the more solitary, the more friendless I am the better. I will atone. I will hold to my maker, my God, our father. I must cling to the truth that I knew when I was sane, not mad as I am now.’ –page 56

‘Not a human being that lived was loved better than I, and the man who loved me I worshipped. Yet I must renounce that love. I must hold to the law given by God.’ –page 57

Things Other People Say About Jane

‘Jane Eyre, this young girl who stands so quiet, so grave at the gate of hell.’ – Rochester, page 55

‘Never, never was anything so frail, so indomitable. A reed she feels in my hand, I could bend her with my fingers, crush her with my fist but what good would it do?’ – Rochester, page 56