Journal

...The time is 1812, the place is Yorkshire.
Robert Gerard Moore is a mill owner trying to upgrade his machinery but
forestalled by the Luddites ( - Damn - ) and legislation associated with the
Napoleonic wars.
Catherine Helstone is a dispossessed 18-year old who comes to his house to
learn French from his sister and falls in love (that’s with him, not his sister).
Shirley Keeldar is an orphaned heiress who turns up and takes over the estate
of Fieldhead and looks like making off with Robert.
Other denizens are Mrs Pryor, Shirley’s governess; and Robert’s brother Louis
who works as a tutor for Shirley’s uncle.
Robert tries to marry Shirley for her money to
save his mill and is rejected.
Legislation changes, Robert’s fortunes improve
and he marries Caroline; Shirley marries Louis
after exhausting every other possibility first; Mrs
Pryor turns out to be Caroline’s long lost
mamma; and Currer Bell turns out to be either
Charlotte Bronte or Shirley’s next-door
neighbour. ....
What I am going to focus on, is the question of
what, exactly is ‘real’ in the novel, and what is
fictional. I present, for example, this image of
Oakwell Hall, the real Fieldhead of the novel.
A picture of the sea by Rene Magritte,
including a picture of a picture of a sea.
Fieldhead in fiction – Oakwell Hall in reality
- 55 -
Here we have a picture of a
sea juxtaposed with a view
out the window of the real
sea. Or, rather, it is a picture
of the sea by Rene Magritte,
and also included in the
subject matter of that
picture, a picture of a picture
of a sea.