A Reading of Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley

1. Start Shirley. Get aggravated about the misogyny. Are you sure Charlotte Bronte wrote this book?

2. For the daughter of an Irish pastor, Charlotte Bronte does not treat Irish pastor Peter Augustus Malone nicely. Plot a post-colonial reading of Shirley. Remember you graduated from grad school and no one will read the paper if you write it. 

3. Suddenly realize you’re single, and it’s horrible. Sign up for two online dating sites. 

4. Finally meet the eponymous Shirley at nearly 200 pages in; wonder why the novel is named after her, and not, say, Caroline, who appeared in the text a little over fifty pages in. 

5. Realize that marriage is a failing institution. Delete both dating accounts. 

6. A chapter filled with feminism buoys your spirits. Who cares if you’re single?!?! You’re a woman and you are AMAZING. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle!!!! 

7. You are not sure what feminism is anymore. Possibly, feminism never existed. You dreamt it.

8. Go to the store. Buy embroidery floss and a very ugly kitten-pattern tea towel set. Start work on this immediately. 

9. Take Shirley with you to Shipshewana. Observe the Amish and Mennonite women carrying their babies and cooking and sewing quilts. Languish. Come to terms with being an old maid. 

10. Realize that somewhere along the way Shirley has changed personalities. Also, Shirley is now the main character. Everyone else you read about for 300 pages might as well be dead. What happened to Malone? You thought he was important. 

11. Complete the first of the kitten-pattern tea towels. 

12. Decide that your version of feminism and Charlotte Bronte’s are very different. 

13. Charlotte Bronte please, for the love of God, stop writing fanfiction about your professor. It’s creepy. He is not going to answer your letters. 

14. Some little boy named Martin decides that he’s going to put his hat in for Caroline (she didn’t die after all!). This is very creepy. Is Charlotte Bronte depicting a child sociopath? You skim most of these pages. You hope they aren’t important. 

15. Threaten Charlotte Bronte. If she makes one more quip about the Irish being nasty, or Native Americans being savage, or Jews being in need of salvation, you are going to write a scathing review of her book on Goodreads. 

16. Completely ignoring the moral of the book, which is that marriage is an evil and then you die, everybody gets married. There are tears on your embroidery.

17. Persuade your father to make a bonfire in the backyard. Burn Shirley. Also, burn all of your embroidery.