Grad's guide to graduate admissions essays - Colleen Reding 2015
University of St Andrews - School of english
General graduate studies
The novels Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Emily Bronte and Anne Bronte, respectively struck a chord with many Victorians due to what many saw as the immorality inherent in both novels. While Emily Bronte’s novel does not condemn its characters for their moral depravity, Anne Bronte’s does; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a novel quite clear in its belief that alcoholism and debauchery are very immoral and very inappropriate. Yet, the critics still attacked it as being rather wicked; though she moralized, Anne Bronte still brought up issues that society did not wish to discuss. I want to know why presenting debauchery was still considered in poor taste.
There must be more to the critics’ claims of immorality and indecency, aside from obvious initial discomfort. Were the novels too close to truth in some areas? If so, which? Is it worse to be a “widow” and condemn debauchery, than to be a Catherine and subsist in it? Is morality dependent on a particular patriarchal structure? Does the criticism surrounding these novels lend support to this notion, or undermine it? What do these novels say about the society they were written in? Can they, being written by women, say anything about society? How did society—the institution of marriage, the patriarchy—influence the topics of and themes within these novels?
I have an unquenchable curiosity to know more about how literature operates, why it is so addictive, and what I can do to further my knowledge of a discipline that so enthralls me. When I was just 8 years old I remember looking up to the top shelf of my mother’s bookcase to see the deep green cover of her copy of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Ever since that moment, my attention has been consumed by novels, poems, plays, and any piece of text I can get my hands on. William Blake, Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters became quick favorites, as did Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Oscar Wilde.
These authors continue to fascinate me. There is something so fundamentally human about the texts of these authors themselves that continuously pulls me toward another read: I am a fly on the wall in Middlemarch, I run with Lizzie through inches of mud, and what I feel when reading Wuthering Heights can only be described as sublime. These works of art have shaped me. They have made me aware of the power of words put together in just such a way, of the control emotion holds over a text and a reader, and of the import seemingly innocuous references have on a text and on a modern reader.
At Warwick I will read for the MA in English: Romantic and Victorian Literature, with a focus on the Victorian period. I will study both the culture and society of the Victorian period, as well as the influence of gender and sexuality on morality within literature and society. Accordingly, I will read the Core Modules “Condition of England: Perceptions in Victorian Literature” and “Sexual Geographies: Gender and Place in British Fiction, 1840—1940” in addition to the Foundation Module, “Introduction to Research Methods.” For Critical Theory, I will read “Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism” and “Postmodernism, Marxism, Deconstruction.” These modules, combined with my inquisitiveness, will further solidify my knowledge in this field as I examine the intricate manner in which morality weaves through literature and society through the lens of gender and sexuality.
