Women

By Andy Ford

As it often does with period drama, the BBC has done an outstanding job in dramatising the backgrounds of the three Bronte sisters in To Walk Invisible. Yorkshire screenwriter Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack, Last Tango in Halifax) describes the part played by their upbringing in an isolated parsonage in Haworth in Yorkshire, and by their troubled relationship with their brother, Branwell.

The action begins with the unexpected return of Branwell from his tutoring job, after being discharged for “carrying on” with the mistress of the house. The Brontë household were isolated and separated from the village; Branwell’s dismissal is something of a scandal in the small community of Haworth.

Branwell, in love with an unattainable woman, and frustrated in his artistic and literary ambitions, increasingly turns to alcohol. He begs, borrows and cajoles money from Patrick Brontë, his father, and the curate of St Michael’s and All Angels church in Haworth, only to drink it away in various pubs, leading to intense confrontations within the family.

The three Brontë sisters increasingly realise the precariousness of their position, without a profession or trade, slim prospects of marriage, and financial dependence on their ageing father. They discover that all of them have continued their writing from childhood and adolescence when they had composed stories and poems with Branwell, jointly creating a fantasy world called the Glasswork Confederacy, and later, others called Gondal and Angria.

Charlotte (later author of Jane Ayre) secretly reads Emily’s poems about the landscape of the Yorkshire moors, and realises their genius. But when she suggests that Emily should publish her work, she is met with her sister’s fury at an invasion of her inner world.

Nevertheless, the seed of the idea of publication is planted, and ultimately the sisters decide to jointly publish their poems. Realising that Victorian publishers would not even give women writers the time of day, let alone publish their work, Charlotte declares that they must “walk invisible” and so the poems are published under the sexually ambiguous names of Acton (Anne), Currer (Charlotte) and Ellis (Emily) Bell. They sell just two copies.

Windswept north Yorkshire moors

While walking across the windswept Yorkshire moors, Emily explains her idea for Wuthering Heights, based on a story recounted to her by a servant. The cinematography of the bleak moors around Haworth and Bradford is one of the highlights of this film. It also shows the primitive surroundings of 19th century Haworth, a place known for its polluted water supply and high death rate.

Discouraged, but not defeated, Charlotte submits Jane Ayre for publication, drawing on her experiences as a governess and the tragic deaths, in 1825, of her two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, at a brutal Yorkshire boarding school.

There is a bit of difficulty receiving correspondence coming to the parsonage for the fictional Currer Bell, but Charlotte does eventually get the letter that says that Jane Ayre is to be published. On publication in 1847, Jane Ayre was an immediate critical and commercial success, which lead to subsequent publication of Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s book Agnes Grey.

In a memorable scene, Anne and Charlotte travel to London to reveal their identities to their disbelieving publishers. On their return they find that Branwell has died from a haemorrhage caused by his alcoholism. He was gifted but failed to apply his gifts or to find a place in the world.

The film ends with footage from the modern Haworth parsonage museum, showing how these three sisters, facing enormous difficulties and working in isolation, nevertheless created books which still speak to millions of people all over the world, gave a female perspective in literature, and went on to become classics of English literature. How many other books written in the 1840s are still being read and made into films today? Very few.

Sally Wainwright has done a great job of desanctifying the Brontes. She shows them as gritty northern women battling sexism, bereavement and family tensions to create literature of the highest standard.

[To Walk Invisible is available on BBC i-player, here; feature picture from BBC i-player]