Charlotte Bronte and Anne Bronte

People are used to compare things in order to evaluate them, to say that one thing is better or worse that the other or that something is more valuable or not so valuable. By comparing things there is tendency not to mark out the particularity or originality but to equalize and draw parallels between them. Two beautiful novels ''Jane Eyre'' and ''Agnes Gray'' and their well-known creators, Charlotte and Anne Bronte are much compared. We compare the writers personalities, their novels ''Jane Eyre'' and ''Agnes Gray'' and their , so very different, manner of writing. Undeniably, there are some similarities but the question is to what extent we can compare these two, so different, personalities and their works and if we can compare them at all?

Charlotte and Anne's father, Patrick Bronte, wanted his girls to be educated and to be capable of being economically independent therefor he was their first teacher and gave the daughters all his knowledge. But, what is the most important, he excited in them the desire to learn all the time and was very successful in this.
The main theme in both Charlotte Bronte's ''Jane Eyre'' and Anne Bronte's '' Agnes Gray'' is woman's tendency to become independent. Their heroines, just like themselves, want to be educated, to work and achieve independence, both moral and financial. In order to get this independence they both choose a profession of governess. The difference is that while for Jane being a governess is only means how to achieve independence -she is constantly seeking something else, for Agnes it is almost the main purpose,'' How delightful it would be to be a governess! To go out into the world; to enter upon a new life; to act for myself; to exercise my unused faculties; to try my unknown powers; to earn my own maintenance, and something to comfort and help my father, mother, and sister, besides exonerating them from the provision of my food and clothing; to show papa what his little Agnes could do; to convince mama and Mary that I was not quite the helpless, thoughtless being they supposed. And then, how charming to be entrusted with the care and education of children! ''

Sisters Bronte were typical representatives of their time, they could not escape from their environment, its spirit and hypocritical mood of society. Their works reflect social aspects of their time. By choosing the profession of governess for their heroines, Jane and Agnes , sisters Bronte allow their readers to see life from both the servant's and the aristocracy's point of view.

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