I have had some more ideas about Charlotte Brontë, and I want to pass on my interpretation of certain significant events in her life. I think that some of them can be attributed to what I think of as psychological black magic.
Charlotte Brontë and her siblings were obsessed with the Duke of Wellington, England’s hero of the time. He starred in many of the wonderful, Byronic stories that they created from their imaginations. Both Charlotte and Emily Brontë created dark, romantic heroes; it is likely that they thought of the Duke, whose real name was Arthur Wellesley, as dark and romantic too.
Charlotte eventually married a dark man whose first name was Arthur. Was this just a coincidence, or a case of ‘Be very careful what you wish for ...’? He annoyed her when he hung around and dogged her footsteps through the village, but perhaps he was drawn in and caught in a psychic trap.
Her letters show that she was a great daydreamer: she had an almost lifelong habit of ‘making out’ as it was then called. This helped her to escape from her surroundings and painful memories, and provided some compensation for an unsatisfactory life.
Some of her imaginings were so intensely vivid that they were almost hallucinations. She went in for two types of daydreaming: one where it was similar to watching TV and she did not know what would happen next, and the other where she mentally choreographed the events and invested a lot of energy in them, living them as if they were real. Some of the results went into her books.
Charlotte Brontë and her siblings were obsessed with the Duke of Wellington, England’s hero of the time. He starred in many of the wonderful, Byronic stories that they created from their imaginations. Both Charlotte and Emily Brontë created dark, romantic heroes; it is likely that they thought of the Duke, whose real name was Arthur Wellesley, as dark and romantic too.
Charlotte eventually married a dark man whose first name was Arthur. Was this just a coincidence, or a case of ‘Be very careful what you wish for ...’? He annoyed her when he hung around and dogged her footsteps through the village, but perhaps he was drawn in and caught in a psychic trap.
Her letters show that she was a great daydreamer: she had an almost lifelong habit of ‘making out’ as it was then called. This helped her to escape from her surroundings and painful memories, and provided some compensation for an unsatisfactory life.
Some of her imaginings were so intensely vivid that they were almost hallucinations. She went in for two types of daydreaming: one where it was similar to watching TV and she did not know what would happen next, and the other where she mentally choreographed the events and invested a lot of energy in them, living them as if they were real. Some of the results went into her books.