My choice to study my masters in York is due, in no small part, to my love of the Brontës’ works. Two years before I even considered further study, I visited York to see a friend and we dedicated one of our days together to visit the parsonage in Haworth. Therefore, it was exciting to see the event launching Dr Jo Waugh’s book Charlotte Brontë and Contagion: Myths, Memes, and the Politics of Infection was mentioned in the schedule for the York Literature Festival. I had never considered the terms ‘Brontë’ and ‘contagion’ as linked before, but after a further-than-passing thought, it does make sense. The Brontë family lived in the centre of a community where they, as the parson’s family, would be intimately acquainted with the struggles of those around them. They had also lost family members to illness. It would be an interesting discussion that might lead to a deeper understanding of all the Brontës works and the event did not disappoint.
It was hosted by Dr Adam Smith, who interviewed Dr Jo Waugh and, together, guided us through the structure of the book launch. Smith and Waugh collaborate on much work as colleagues, including their podcast Smith & Waugh Talk About Satire, and their dynamic allowed for a comfortable flow from the introduction of the speaker by Smith, to Waugh’s discussion of the introduction, key chapter, and conclusion of her book and then finish with a question and answer time.
The event was partly book launch, partly book reading. Smith explained at the beginning that Waugh had wanted to use this event as an opportunity for those who could not access her work. Since the book is an academic monograph mainly marketed towards academic librarians, the event was used to give a brief and interesting taster session. As a student who will unlikely be able to access the university library when Waugh’s book is bought for our cohort, I really appreciated this.
Introduction: Charlotte Bronte and Contagion begins with a quote from Shirley, Charlotte’s second published novel; “delightfully contagious”. The quote is referring to a minor character Mr Wynne who hopes that the main character Shirley will marry his son. It is a malapropism – think Freudian slip but with deliberate misuse of a similar word on the side of the author- of possibly ‘convivial’, ‘contiguous’ or ‘congenial’. Brontë is connecting contagion with words about contact and how she will draw upon that link in Shirley to discuss the concept. As Waugh quotes Pricilla Walk:
“Disease emergence dramatizes the dilemma that inspires the most basic of human narratives; the necessity and the danger of human contact” Priscilla Walk, Contagious, Cultures, and the Outbreak Narrative (2007)
Brontë uses the events of Shirley to dramatize what she has seen of the increase of contagious diseases in the 1840s. Diseases that rely on human contact lead to close monitoring, and sometimes judgment, of a community. The fact that this project began in 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic hit, was not lost on Waugh and made the rest of her work far more poignant.
Moving onto the meat of the book in Chapter 5 Ferment, Frenzy, Boundaries, and Barriers: Rabies in Shirley, Waugh discusses the rabies incident in Shirley. The main character, in an act of art imitating the life of Charlotte’s sister Emily, is bitten by a dog suspected of having rabies, and burns herself with a hot iron. With this ‘self-harm’, she self-medicates by cauterising the wound and removing the possible illness. There is also the cure for spurious rabies – a pseudo-rabies that in an imagined threat of rabies which was also believed to cause harm – administered by that character of Louis, who keeps Shirley calm. It is in this episode and her wishes of how she wants to treat the possible death brought on by rabies, that Brontë can shed light on Shirley’s feelings towards Louis. There was a sexual disinhibition brought on by rabies. In particular, nymphomania was seen in female sufferers of rabies and Shirley lets Louis know that she would prefer “to die by laudanum rather than suffocation” to avoid the more awful method of dispatching her. It also points to her worries about her repressed feelings for Louis.
At this point the phrase “And that’s enough about rabies!” came into the talk and we moved on to the conclusion.
Finishing with the chapter Epilogue and Conclusion: “Jane Eyre Fever,” Virality, Endemicity, and Contagion, Waugh reflected on writing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are “strikingly not post contagion” and while Victorian ideas on diseases seem innocent and lacking information, we are not very different. We assume our view of contagion is better and scientifically informed, but this was challenged by going through Covid 19. There is also the connection to Memes and how they are contagious and spread like disease; specifically, how memes can spread the Brontë myths.
The interview section, after Waugh’s engaging presentation, centred around the discussion of the Brontë myths. As our medical paradigms shift, so do our views on the Brontës. It has led to a lot of retroactive diagnoses. With this, and the Brontë scholars who seem to be wanting to write a story of their lives that is “the last and best Brontë book”, the way that the Brontës die in their ‘story’ needs to fit in with the characters they have been given. It’s led to Charlotte Brontë, who is characterized as a neurotic, dying of a disease that is connected to neurotic tendencies She actually died from exhaustion and dehydration. Unfortunately, contemporary views in the 1970s led to commenting that Charlotte “doesn’t want her baby enough” that her body kills her.
Similarly, Emily is characterized as a mysterious woman and her death is attributed to consumption (even though this is TB by another name). These retroactive diagnoses are unhelpful and do not add anything to the scholarly discourse on the authors.
The discussion of how illness is used in the Brontë novels, however, does yield some interesting ideas. Shirley is seen as a social problem novel and is set around the Luddite movement of textile workers who lost their jobs due to implementing machinery. Discussing diseases in this case allows Brontë to discuss the social issues and reflect on the Chartist movement that came after the Luddites, and links illnesses like rabies and asks ‘What makes people violent?’ ‘How do people flip into rage and rebellion?’
In Jane Eyre, when Helen Burns dies of typhus Brontë can use the illness to show what happens when people neglect poor children.
There were many more topics discussed, such as which illnesses are used and which are not. It is not that tuberculosis is not heroin chic, the link has been overstated. While it has been aestheticized to a certain extent, it is used because it’s not as disgusting or disfiguring as other diseases. Cholera rarely is a narrative choice because it’s quick and dirty – not useful if you want to use their death for them to give a long speech, for example.
There is also the link between the responses to diseases and politics. We have seen this during the pandemic. Autocratic governments tend towards strict quarantining; Liberal governments tend towards emphasising individual responsibilities. Brontë understood the link to politics and used it in her work.
Smith finished by asking “What is next in the Waugh Canon?”
Dr Waugh will be looking at the more interesting uses of the pseudonym Curer Bell and a Shirley read-along podcast over the summer discussing why Shirley is the least favourite Brontë book. Last year, she was part of the Satire and the Brontës event at the York Literature Festival. With her contribution to the upcoming handbook on Reading the Brontës for Routledge, maybe we will be lucky to have another Brontës event in next year’s festival. In the meantime, you can read her chapter “The Brontës and Popular Culture” in Edinburgh Companion to the Brontës and the Arts and, like one of her students was quoted saying, “always think about Jo when [you] hear about tuberculosis”.