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This is a partly statistical, partly qualitative analysis of the novels of the Brontë sisters in which underlying continuity and interaction of characters appearing in the different novels are investigated with an eye to establishing the important conflicts, interpersonal attitudes, and expectations of the writers. Inferences from the novels are compared with biographical summaries. The following hypotheses are derived: Charlotte regarded Emily both as an object of deep love and as a rival and envied superior; Emily, on her side, seems to have reacted to her sister with respect and affection, but without feeling dependent upon her, or envious, or even powerfully moved to love her. There was a closer resemblance between Emily and her father or a father substitute than was true of Charlotte, and Charlotte was more like and more in sympathy with her mother or a mother substitute. In their love choices Emily tended more toward a brother or brother substitute; Charlotte toward her father or a father substitute, but with more inhibition and with a complicating factor of love for her sister entering strongly into the situation. Both were exposed to violent emotions emanating chiefly from some male but Emily felt more equal to the demands thus made on her than did Charlotte. Charlotte was more involved in the feminine counterpart of the Oedipus situation than was Emily, this being due to Charlotte's greater sympathetic awareness of the mother and her greater tendency to choose the father as a love object, and to Emily's greater identification with the father and her tendency to choose the brother as a love object.