of Zoraïde Reuter, whom he later marries. Mademoiselle Zoraïde Reuter: The Catholic headmistress of the school in Belgium. William is initially attracted to her, though she is destined to marry Monsieur Pelet. Frances Evans Henri: A pupil-teacher at the school in Belgium where William Crimsworth finds himself. After the two fall in love they get married. They eventually move to England. She is a Swiss orphan of half -English extraction who was raised by her aunt. Madame Reuter: Zoraïde's mother Madame Pelet: Monsieur Pelet's mother Eulalie, Hortense and Caroline: Three coquettish students at Mademoiselle Reuter's school Sylvie: Another student Jules Vanderkelkov: A student at Monsieur Pelet's school Victor Crimsworth: Son of William and Frances Evans Henri. Themes Religion Throughout the novel William looks down on Catholics and "Romish wizardcraft". Charlotte Brontë pictures the two main Catholic characters as treacherous and untrustworthy. William believes that Catholic training has a negative influence on the young girls at his school. William has a certain snobbery against the Flemish and is disgusted by the way they butcher the English language as he attempts to teach them. Context The novel is based on Charlotte Brontë's experiences in Brussels, where she studied as a language student and was a teacher in 1842. Much of the subject matter of The Professor was later reworked, from the perspective of a female teacher, into Brontë's later novel Villette. Bibliography Brontë, Charlotte The Professor. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005. Butterworth, Robert. "The Professor and the Contemporary Working Milieu." Brontë Studies 35.3 (2010): 215–221. Butterworth, RD. "The Professor and the Modern Experience of Work." Brontë Studies 36 (2011): 255-262. Longmuir, A. "Reader, Perhaps You Were Never in Belgium?: Negotiating British Identity in Charlotte Brontë's The Professor and Villette." Nineteenth-Century Literature, 64.2 (2009): 163–188. Lonoff, Sue. "The Three Faces of Constantin Heger." Brontë Studies 36.1 (2011): 28–37. O'Toole, T. Introduction. The Professor. By Charlotte Brontë. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005: vii–xiii. Pearson, Sara L. “Constructing Masculine Narrative: Charlotte Brontë’s The Professor.” Women Constructing Men: Female Novelists and Their Male Characters, 1750-2000. Ed. Sarah S.G. Frantz and Katharina Rennhak. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2010. 83-99. Peterson, Linda. "Triangulation, Desire, and Discontent in the Life of Charlotte Brontë." SEL: Studies in English Literature 47.4 (2007): 901–920. "Playing with the Professor. (Charlotte Brontë's Novel)." CLA Journal 37.3 (1994): 348. External links 1857 British novels Novels by Charlotte Brontë English novels Novels published posthumously Novels