I Am the Only Being

(Emily Bronte)

Great Books (SS-104)

M. Irfan Nadeem
Emily Bronte
• Emily Bronte (July 30, 1818 to December 19, 1847)
• She was born at Thornton, Yorkshire and died at Haworth, Yorkshire)
• Full name Emily Jane Bronte (pseudonym: Ellis Bell)
• She was the greatest of the Bronte sisters
• Not much is found about her because no record is found
• Her sisters’ names were Charlotte Bronte & Anne Bronte (both were
literary figures)
• Early death of their mother proved very devastating for them
Emily Bronte
• Emily got more fame than her sisters
• First book was a joint venture by Emily, Charlotte and Anne (Poems by
Currer, Ellis, and Action Bell)
• Well known because of her novel Wuthering Heights (an intense,
solidly imagined novel
• There was not warmth in sisters
• Emily had so many psychological issues
• She died so early because of tuberculosis and cold and loneliness &
disturbed life were the other reasons
I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;
I never caused a thought of gloom,
A smile of joy, since I was born.
In secret pleasure, secret tears,
This changeful life has slipped away,
As friendless after eighteen years,
As lone as on my natal day.
There have been times I cannot hide,
There have been times when this was drear,
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here.
But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care;
And they have died so long ago,
I hardly now believe they were here.
First melted off the hope of youth,
Then fancy’s rainbow fast withdrew;
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew.
‘Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow, servile, insincere;
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there.
Critical Analysis of the Poem
• Loneliness
• Love, loss and mysteries of life and death
• Hope to Hopelessness
• Normalcy to Abnormality
• Lack of trust
• Psychological issues badly disturb the life
• Revelation of her own self
• Life is not a bed of roses
 All the best
&
Thanks a Trillion!
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