Children in the face of adversity a comparison of Harry Potter and Jane Eyre

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Wider reading essay: Children in the face of adversity a comparison of Harry Potter and Jane Eyre

The two books that I am comparing are Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone by J.K Rowling and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The two children in the stories are both under similar types of mistreatment by their guardians. Both their parents are dead and they are both being looked after their aunts and uncle. Jane was being looked after by her uncle but he died. In my essay, I will try to point out the similarities and differences between the two characters’ lives. As well as giving you a brief summary of both books.

Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born on the thirty-first June 1965 in Chepstow, Gwent. You could say that she has been a writer for the majority of her life as her first book – Rabbit - was written when she was a little girl of 6. She left Chepstow for Exeter University, where her course included one year in Paris. As a postgraduate she moved to London for two years to work at Amnesty International doing research into human rights abuses in Francophone Africa. She started writing Harry Potter after the idea occurred to her on an interminable Manchester to London train journey. By the time she got off at King's Cross station, Harry's story was conceived as a seven book series and many of the characters in the books had already been invented. She wrote during her lunchtimes in cafes and pubs. Joanne then moved to Oporto in north Portugal for three years to teach English as a foreign language, married a Portuguese journalist, and became pregnant. By the time her daughter was born, her book was one-quarter finished. Back in a tiny flat in Edinburgh, now divorced and unemployed, she still continued to write at the local cafe, while her infant daughter slept. She did a PGCE at Moray House training college, before teaching part-time at the Leith Academy. The Scottish Arts Council then gave her a bursary that enabled her to finish the book and, in June 1997, five years after its conception, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published to great critical acclaim. It has won several awards including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Gold Medal 9-11 years, the British Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year and The Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year. The book has also won two extremely prestigious foreign awards - Sorcières Prix 1998 in France and the Premio Cento per la Letteratura Infantile 1998 in Italy. Joanne still lives in Edinburgh with her young daughter and continues to write in cafes.

Charlotte Bronte, the daughter of Patrick Bronte and Mary Bronte, was born on 21st April 1816. When Charlotte was a small child, her father became curate in the village of Haworth. Charlotte's mother died in 1821, leaving five daughters and a son, to be looked after by an aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. In 1824 Charlotte, and three of her sisters, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge. Conditions at the school were appalling and after two of her sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died of , Charlotte and Emily were brought home. For the next six years, the four surviving children, were left to look after themselves. They spent the time at Haworth telling and writing stories about fantasy worlds they had created. Patrick Bronte decided in 1831 that Charlotte should continue her education and was sent to a Miss Wooler, who ran a school at Roe Head. This time she was treated well and while at the school made two life-long friends, Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey. When Charlotte was 19 she was offered a post as assistant teacher at Roe Head. After she returned home in 1839 she turned down a proposal of marriage from Ellen's brother, the Rev. Henry Nussey, and instead became a governess at Skipton. This was followed by posts as a governess to a family in  and as a pupil-teacher in Brussels. While at the school Charlotte fell desperately in love with her teacher, Constantin Heger. He was married and showed no signs of returning her love. Charlotte returned to England and began to write. She was unable to find a publisher for her first novel, The Professor, but she was more successful with Jane Eyre (1847), a novel based on her experiences at the Clergy Daughters' School. Published under the name, Currer Bell, the novel achieved immediate success. Soon afterwards, her sisters also had novels published. Anne Bronte achieved success with Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) and Emily Bronte published Wuthering Heights just before her death from  in 1848. Over the next few months Charlotte's brother Branwell and sister, Anne, both died from this disease. Charlotte continued to write and published Shirley in 1849. She also became friends with , who was later to write her biography. Villette, a novel inspired by her unrequited love for Constantin Heger, was published in 1853. Charlotte married her father's curate, Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854. Charlotte Bronte immediately became pregnant and this created medical problems and she died on 31st March, 1855.

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I think to an extent Charlotte Brontë has based the character of Jane Eyre on herself. The bad school she went to, being a teacher, turning down the marriage proposal of a Reverend, and the unreturned love of Constantin Heger is partially mirrored by the love Jane Eyre had for Mr. Rochester, however this love was returned later in the book. I think that by going through what she did, she felt it would have been good to let other people know of what not just her but countless other children living at that time suffered. This wasn’t the only ...

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