Emily, the Most Famous Bronte of Them All

Emily Bronte is arguably the most famous of the Bronte sisters; certainly only Charlotte gives her any serious competition. Her fame, like Charlotte's, rests primarily upon one single work of fiction, her gothic novel Wuthering Heights. But why should that novel serve to elevate Emily to more fame than Charlotte when her sister's own novel Jane Eyre has retained its popularity alongside Emily's book? Interestingly, the key to Emily's ascension to the near-unanimous acclaim as the premier woman of letters in her family may be found in the keen observation made by Charlotte that Emily had in Wuthering Heights created a novel that was both disturbing and fascinating to the reader simultaneously.

This dichotomy in the novel may also be viewed as being part of the reason that Emily Bronte the person-as opposed to the novelist-has come to have such a firm grasp on the consciousness of her readers. If the reader is fascinated by her novel because there is a certain unpleasant element contained within, might there not also be that typical fascination the public has with the tragic artist who dies quickly following the creation of her signature work. Emily Bronte died in 1848, just one year after the publication of Wuthering Heights. Her early death leaves readers with the always unanswered question of what more might she have accomplished? Much in the way that contemporary readers of A Confederacy of Dunces cannot help but wonder what brilliance might have followed this novel by John Kennedy Toole if he had not committed suicide before it was even published, or how fans of James Dean cannot help but watch one of his movies without wondering what he might have done had he not died in a car crash, the readers of Wuthering Heights have had a shadow peering over their shoulder every time the book has ever been cracked open. Just as there is a significant unpleasantness to the character of Heathcliff while there is also an unrelenting interest in him, so is there a natural conflict while reading Emily's novel between a gripping interest in her story and a subdued, almost melancholy sense of loss.