Like Susan, I think one of the most important concepts we can gain from the Brontes is the importance of cooperation and collaboration in fostering creativity.  When the Bronte children were growing up, they created "an imagined African kingdom called Glass Town," a world that, like glass, allowed the children to express themselves and see each other clearly (386).  Throughout the course, we've discussed the wonder of childhood.  By cooperatively engaging in this imaginary world, the Bronte children held onto this wonder and cultivated their imaginations and creativity.  Instead of finding stagnating comfort amongst each other, the children challenged one another through collaboration and camaraderie. 

            In this way, childhood creativity is inextricably linked the adult creativity.  It's easier to be creative and daring as a child because of the nature of childhood as opposed to as an adult when you're generally expected to always be correct and rational.  The Brontes who went on to write acclaimed novels found their creative side during childhood.

            This reading also reveals both the connections and disconnections between romanticism and gothic.  According to romanticists, "the spontaneous innocence of the child (and of humanity in its childhood) is corrupted with the onset of intellectual separation from nature, but the individual, and equally human history, can overcome this separating by a spiral process of regaining the lost unity, albeit cleansed and improved by the journey.  Romantic art is thus essentially one of movement, figured in quests, journeys, and pilgrimages whose aim is to return to a lost of home or haven" (193).  On the other hand, "in the novel it was the function of Gothic to open horizons beyond social patterns, rational decisions, and institutionally approved emotions/  It became then a great liberator of feeling.  It acknowledged the non-rational" (378).  Both styles foster reflection on childhood.  Gothic novels, such as Jane Eyre, bring the difficulties of childhood and family life to the forefront while promoting reflection on our past.  Romantic novels return to nature and journeys to remind us of our childhood days.  The difference lies in the psychological relationship.  How are these two concepts related?  Both styles promote nature, imagination and emotion, but what are the benefits and disadvantages of their unique styles? 

            The gothic style also promotes reflection that we might not have considered during our childhood.  For example, "though partly unconventional, Jane is nevertheless so portrayed as to evoke new feelings rather than merely exercise old ones" (379).  Instead of remembering the agitation I felt toward my cousins as a child, Jane Eyre prompted me to recall how helpless they made me feel.  Is it the connection we feel with the work that sparks this different connection or is it a connection that comes with age?  Or both?