The Professor

Abstract

Charlotte Brontë wrote The Professor in the form of an autobiography, using the central character, William Crimsworth, as the narrator of events. The novel begins with a description of his experiences as a young man in England, his adult life in Brussels, and finally, his life of retirement when he returns to England with his wife and son. Variety is given to the linear pattern by dividing the novel into three geographical sections, which correspond to differing stages of Crimsworth’s material and emotional development, all of which are held together by a strict chronological order, but from the point of view of an elderly man. Thus, the structure of the novel is a simple and straightforward chronological exposition of events beginning in Chapter II. Chapter I is a rather clumsy presentation of some background information, which could have been omitted, and the facts incorporated in Chapter II, as it is written in the form of a letter to an old school friend named Charles, whom we do not hear of again.