"The Other One": The Youngest Bronte Sister, Anne Trivia Game | Literature

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Anne Bronte, like many people in the nineteenth century, contracted tuberculosis. How old was she when she died from that disease?

Answer: Twenty-Nine

She contracted tuberculosis shortly after the publication of "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," her second, most ambitious, novel and died of it in the spring of 1849. Many famous artists in the 19th century also had tuberculosis, including Frederick Chopin, Anton Chekov, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and John Keats among others. Tuberculosis was also called "consumption," "the wasting disease," or, simply, TB.

2. When the Bronte sisters took on male pseudonyms, who was Anne Bronte?

Answer: Acton Bell

The three sisters used these names when publishing a collection of their poems.
Charlotte Bronte explains their choice to be motivated by the antipathy many of the time felt toward "authoresses." Charlotte Bronte is well aware that they chose Christian names which they called "positively masculine." Charlotte Bronte edited a volume called "Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell" which was published in 1846 by Aylott and Jones of London. Their family paid for its publication. In spite of the sisters' attempt to disguise their gender, it is reported that the volume sold only two copies.

3. Who was the author of these biographical coments regarding Anne Bronte? "The choice of subject was an entire mistake. Nothing less congruous with the writer's nature could be conceived. The motives which dictated this choice were pure, but, I think, slightly morbid." These remarks come from a clear minded, forceful person who knew her well. Who is it?

Answer: Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte had troubles with being public about their brother Branwell's troubles. She also was ambiguous about Anne Bronte's blatant condemnation of Victorian standards in the ground-breaking novel, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." She writes of its negative effects on Anne. Charlotte Bronte is aware of the negative reception of "'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' by Acton Bell.

She says she is not surprised. In Charlotte Bronte's opinion, "The choice of subject was ... [a] mistake." Overall, she thought the book was not in keeping with her sister's character. Similarly, Charlotte Bronte's wrote of her sister Emily's "coarseness" in "Wuthering Heights." Regarding Anne, Charlotte believes that topics in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" are too difficult for such a gentle soul as her sister to explore.

4. What was the name of Anne Bronte's coming-of-age novel? As was the custom, it was often published with the name of the person growing up.

Answer: Agnes Grey

Agnes decides at the age of 18 to leave home and become a governess. She recognizes a dependence and lack of respect in herself that she wants to overcome, "Though a woman in my own estimation, I was still a child in theirs."

5. Which Anne Bronte poem reveals her reading of the famous Samuel Johnson's poem which begins, "Let Observation with extensive View, Survey Mankind from China to Peru"?

Answer: Vanitas, Vanitis

The reference is to Samuel Johnson's famous 'The Vanity of Human Wishes.' Anne Bronte's poetry is a hybrid of Biblical influences, profound reading, and what many have called sheer "technical mastery." Her scriptural understanding combine with a focus on reason and thoughtfulness to allow her to reach for a big picture--whether this be of the Victorian environment, the roles of memory, the place for artifice, disguise and disclosure.

6. What is the name of the kingdom Anne and Emily created, a kingdom which was very unlike the kingdom created by Branwell and Charlotte?

Answer: Gondal

Charlotte and her brother, Branwell, created a world they called Angria, which they invented in 1829. Research shows that Charlotte continued to write about Angria until 1839. Emily and Anne, wrote about a world they called Gondal, from 1834 until about 1845.

There are approximately one hundred tiny volumes of the Angria chronicles, but none of the Gondal creations have survived. It seems that Gondal was less worldly-wealthy than Angria and showed generally more focus on people's feelings.

7. In her major novel, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," Anne Bronte uses the narrative consciousness of an unperceptive narrator, Markham, to expose inner limitations of this narrator. For years, readers have read this novel as though it was a story of characters and not also a novel of language, perception and inner quavering. Who is this unperceptive narrator whose story involves his perception of what he cares about?

Answer: Gilbert Markham

The role of Markham is fascinating. He is a character in the novel. He is a person writing letters about these events both at the beginning and at the end of the novel. His wife-to-be Helen also has her written version of events which are included within the novel. Markham can be called an autodiegetic narrator. That is, he is a character in the story that he is narrating--in this case quite uniquely narrating.

8. The novel "Agnes Gray" begins with "all true histories contain instruction." In a probing investigation of social instruction, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" deftly shows limitations regarding the perception and treatment of women in the Victorian era. It also has one of the most independent and creative women characters in Victorian fiction. This masterwork mocks and magnifies the incongruities and ironies of mastery and slavery. In it, what is the name of Helen's first husband, who is highly similar to Branwell Bronte in his thoughtless, cruel drunkenness?

Answer: Huntington

Helen's marriage to the disintegrating Huntington causes her to exclaim, "I hate him tenfold more than ever, for having brought me to this....I feel that they [my thoughts] are turning my nature to gall."

9. Bronte's "Tenant" has been praised for its post-structuralist shape. The novel opens with Gilbert writing to Halford in 1847. However, Gilbert's actual account of events is twenty years earlier, beginning in 1827 when he tells of the arrival of a new mysterious tenant. Who is this new artistic tenant who has just abandoned a failed and brutal marriage?

Answer: Helen Graham

Many readers of "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" write of Gilbert's need to make his interpretation of events surrounding Helen the only valid one. They write of his enclosing her in words and an overprotectiveness. The conclusion of this novel is certainly other than the end of "Agnes Gray" or "Jane Eyre" in which the heroine finds a definite mutual comfort in their upcoming marriage.

10. Anne Bronte's novels further explore writings of her sisters. "The Tenant" shares many themes regarding love and identity with those in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights." "Agnes Grey" concludes with an earned marriage, not an explosion of romantic love. Its conclusion is in this way similar to Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." What is the name of the man who marries Agnes?

Answer: Mr. Weston

Toward the end, Agnes writes, "The end of Religion is to teach us not how to die, but how to live." Readers have noted that Mr. Weston is not at all romanticized. For the readers driven to Heathcliffian heroes, Mr. Weston may seem perhaps a bit of a bore. Overall, in the novel, he shows himself much like Mr. Knightley in "Emma" as a thoroughly dependable and loving man, if, as someone has noted, a bit 'phlegmatic."

Source: Author Windswept

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor MotherGoose before going online.
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"The Other One": The Youngest Bronte Sister, Anne Quiz

Anne Bronte was the youngest, least known, quietest, yet, perhaps, most audacious Bronte sister in her subjects, her style and her subtleness. What do you know of the youngest Bronte sister?

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