Brontë Women as Mitski Lyrics
All the pain and complex tapestry of female emotion can probably be surmised in a work of the Brontës or a Mitski song and that's just facts, so jump in girlies!
Robert McGinnis / NBC News
Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë)
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| Cherwell - The British Library Collections |
'The night breeze carries something sweet, a peach tree'
The 'night breeze' is how the creepy activity Jane experiences in Thornfield Hall at night is described - the strange noises and movements of curtains that are in reality Bertha Mason moving about the house. Whilst it is considered a dark and sinister place to Jane at first, she does find love there. The darkness 'carries' many things for Jane in the novel but a love with Mr Rochester is one of them. This love is symbolised by the tree Rochester proposes to Jane under. Over night, the tree is struck by lightning and split in two, echoing the theme of love co-existing with darkness because it foreshadows the sad secret that threatens Jane and Rochester's engagement. (The secret being that Rochester is already married and he keeps his wife locked in the attic - in case you need reminding!).
Bertha Mason (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë)
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| Edmund H. Garrett, for Jane Eyre 1897 |
'I'm what's left of when we swam under the moon'
When I was listening out for lyrics that are a good fit for Bertha, this one made me sad! Despite being described by her husband as a 'lunatic' and locked away by him, Brontë clarifies Bertha Mason and Mr Rochester were once in love.
Bertha is not a 'lunatic' but a person that became mentally ill by experiencing 'otherness' as a mixed race woman brought to late-Georgian England. Especially because Bertha is also a character that lets herself freely express the emotions she feels, refusing to conform to the expectation of a quiet and poised woman. Rochester's treatment of Bertha only exacerbates her illness and pain. Hence the tragic lyric that captures a woman following her heart across the ocean only to be continually hurt and slowly killed by the man she loved - 'I'm what's left of when we swam under the moon'. The moon not only represents love but forbodes its doom, again fitting the 'love in darkness' theme of Jane Eyre. The line simultaneously conveys that their past love was very private and hidden by Rochester from the rest of his society.
(Additionally: 'Just don't leave me alone wondering where you are, I am stronger than you give me credit for' - also from I Don't Smoke by Mitski, befits Bertha. She burns Rochester's estate to the ground - the place she was imprisoned for so long).
Cathy (Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë)
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| Edna Clarke Hall illustration for Wuthering Heights. Cathy and Heathcliff as children. |
'So when I die which I must do. Could it shine down here with you?'
Cathy is a restless soul because she is perpetually divided between two states of being. She longs to lose herself in the natural world as she did as a child growing up on the Moors, a life that she shares with her love, the tumultuously unpredictable Heathcliff. Yet unlike Heathcliff, Cathy must protect her reputation as a woman in society in order to survive. She has to perform the role of a civilised wife to the reliable gentleman, Edgar Linton. Cathy becomes highly aware that these two conflicting directions she is pulled into will inevitably destroy her: 'So when I die which I must do'. Cathy thus pledges to Heathcliff that she will never be away from him again. Her ghost strives to return to Wuthering Heights, the place of her freedom, childhood, and where Heathcliff resides waiting for her. Such a yearning fits with 'Could it shine down here with you?' - 'it' is Cathy's love and spirit attempting to finally reunite with the other half of her truest self.
Helen Graham (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë)
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| Illustration ©2020 Valentina Catto from The Folio Society edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
'and while my dreams made music in the night, carefully, I was going to live'
- Last Words of a Shooting Star
Helen Graham escapes an abusive marriage from Arthur Huntingdon. 'my dreams made music in the night' - in the years of her marriage she dreams of a better life and it is one of her few happinesses. Of course in the 19th Century, a wife leaving her husband was near impossible and would tarnish her in the eyes of society. It is even more shocking and impressive that the religious Helen does so in the novel. Yet she devotes her faithful resolve into saving herself and her son from Huntingdon, despite the societal repercussions she knows she will endure - 'carefully, I was going to live' - and careful she is! Helen assumes the fake name Graham, poses as a widow, and disappears to Wildfell Hall where she and her son can hide. Thus, Helen does live again, and in more ways than one. Farmer Gilbert Markham falls in love with Helen while she slowly reveals her past to him. He accepts all of her and she finds happiness.
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