Anne Brontë (1820–1849)

I am a big fan of the Brontes. While Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights are deservedly all time classics, Anne's two novels are less well known and comparatively neglected; and Agnes Grey is probably less known than Anne's other novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Agnes Grey is comparatively short and is a semi-autobiographical novel where Anne recounts the eponymous young lady's experiences as a governess to the children of wealthy families. When her father's business show more ventures fall apart after the sinking of a ship of his merchant business partner, young Agnes goes to work as a governess to earn the family some money, despite discouragement from her family. Her experiences are actually quite hilarious, dealing with spoiled and delinquent children and their oblivious parents who refuse to see any wrong in their offspring, particularly in the case of the Bloomfields. Later she looks after the older daughters of the Murrays, who are also a trial, being self-centred and needy, but with whom she is able eventually to establish a modus vivendi. She also falls in love with a vicar in the Murrays' local village, Mr Weston. This is a lovely and very satisfying novel, in some ways ahead of its time in dealing with "feral" children, as is Wildfell Hall in dealing with domestic abuse. A great read. show less

There is a stock image of the Victorian governess, isn't there: the stern, plain figure in black who is given charge of the upper- or middleclass family's children, shepherding them from classroom to drawing room, and thence to bed. It's easy to caricature this figure, as Joan Aiken did with the figure of Miss Slighcarp in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, or to portray her as a dominatrix for men (and women) of certain tastes, but I suspect that mostly the romantic view of the governess will show more rest on the titular person of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847).

However, the life of many a governess is portrayed more realistically in Charlotte's sister's novel, the semi-autobiographical Agnes Grey, which even more than Jane Eyre exposed the circumstances which governesses were expected to tolerate without a murmur. Clues that much of the story of Agnes ("pure, holy") is based on Anne's own experiences come in the opening paragraphs: both their fathers are clergymen in the north of England; both young women are twice engaged as governesses, the first post being short-lived though the second lasts a few years; and both are involved in plans to begin a school with family members (though in only one case does it come to fruition). And, from what we know of Anne's life, the circumstances of Agnes' treatment parallel the author's own.

Because of her family's impoverished circumstances -- her clergyman father has made a disastrous investment -- the shy but principled Agnes chooses to offer her services as a governess to whichever family will take her on. The first family, the Bloomfields of Wellwood Mansion, abuse her greatly: the children are ungovernable, their sides taken by the parents, and Agnes given no leeway to assert any authority. The promise of her starting there is never fulfilled after her arrival:
I awoke the next morning; feeling like one whirled away by enchantment, and suddenly dropped from the clouds into a remote and unknown land, widely and completely isolated from all he had ever seen before.

She is indeed completely isolated and given no support, yet blamed for her lack of control over the four children. Not unnaturally she lasts scant months and is let go. She next applies as governess to the Murrays of Horton Lodge, a position only marginally more tolerable. The two sons thankfully soon depart for private school, making Agnes' life a little more tolerable with just two girls to supervise.

At this point the mood starts to lighten; there's a chapter where the teenage girls start a dialogue with Agnes, one that injects a moiety of humour into the proceedings, despite a moment of utter tragedy for our heroine. And in fact we begin to transition from a misery memoir to a romance of almost Austenesque sensibility as we wonder if the sympathetic parish curate Mr Weston will provide the solace and comfort that Agnes desires, for he seems to appreciate her sterling qualities as well as sharing the same interests and values.

"Reading is my favourite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read." -- Agnes to Mr Weston, Chapter XV

The climax takes place in a seaside town not unlike the Scarborough where Anne herself took her holidays (and where she was to end her days), for it is here that she and her mother have set up a school for gentle folk. And were it not for the more evangelical phrases that Anne employs the ending could easily be out of anything that Austen herself wrote.

Agnes Grey is, to my mind, a slightly uneven novel -- in tone at least -- but still astonishing for its realism and insights. Here for example is Agnes/Anne commenting on whether appearance matters or not in terms of others' assessment and judgement of one's worth:
If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior. So said the teachers of our childhood; and so say we to the children of the present day. All very judicious and proper, no doubt; but are such assertions supported by experience? -- Chapter XVII

There is too often a mismatch between what ought to happen and what actually happens, is what she's saying, and this authorial voice is what distinguishes Anne and her siblings from Austen's more observational approach, and which gives the first-person narrative of Agnes Grey its particular poignancy and potency.

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While Agnes Grey is well aware that her in-between position as neither family member nor servant gives her precious little status, some governesses achieved great dominance in their families by sheer force of will; this allowed Joan Aiken to caricature this type in the terrifying figure of Miss Slighcarp in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962), a woman who felt free to dispense with the customary drab costume governesses were expected to wear and to usurp the parental position of authority.

https://wp.me/s2oNj1-agnes show less

3.5, rounded up to 4 because Anne
This suffers a bit from coming after [b:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall|337113|The Tenant of Wildfell Hall|Anne Brontë|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1479652419s/337113.jpg|1389477] for me. That book is a masterpiece, but this is Anne Brontë's first and it's still a must-read in its own right. Anne was really attentive to the way ideology is reproduced among the upper-classes, passed down from smug, privileged parents to their kids. As always, she's astute show more about how ideals of masculinity and femininity are maintained, and I don't know if that was her intention, but she really zeroes in on how hostile heterosexual relations are among the well-off; when marriage was about property and maintaining the family line.

My biggest issue with this book is that it felt too episodic, like a series of vignettes strung together. The narrative becomes a bit more fleshed out when Mr. Weston makes an appearance. If I read it before ToWH I would have loved it a little bit more; nevertheless, it is wonderful to see the progress from this to ToWH. To think about what could have come after ToWH had she lived longer! show less

Apparently, the main reason Anne Brontë's masterpiece is not as well known as her sisters' is that Charlotte suppressed any new editions after her death, as the novel was deemed extremely shocking for its time. This is very unfortunate, as The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is much better than Anne's previous book, Agnes Grey, better even than Emily's Wuthering Heights, and nearly as good as Charlotte's Jane Eyre. Like Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall examines the roles of reason and passion show more in life and concludes that both are necessary to achieve happiness. More specifically, Wildfell Hall is about how to judge other people's characters, particularly in matters of love. These themes are brilliantly dramatized through a story about a woman who makes a youthful, but profound, error in whom she chooses to marry, and as her husband's vicious nature becomes increasingly clear, struggles to leave him---and how she herself is unfairly judged by her new neighbors when she manages to do so. (While I'm sure Anne didn't intend it this way, given her Christian piety, the novel could be read as a good argument for liberal divorce laws and the wisdom of cohabitation before marriage.)

Many people sharply contrast the romanticism of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre with the realism of Wildfell Hall, but this is a mistake---and, despite its more frank depictions of some of the social problems of its time (including alcoholism and domestic abuse), Anne rejected this dichotomy in the novel itself:

"'But romantic notions will not do: I want her to have true notions.'

"'Very right: but in my judgment, what the world stigmatises as romantic, is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed; for, if the generous ideas of youth are too often over-clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false.'"

This is related to the broader theme about the dichotomy of reason and passion, which she also rejects, so that analysis more or less misses the whole point of the novel.

Like Jane Eyre (and to a lesser extent Wuthering Heights), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an intellectual and emotional tour de force, and one of the greatest classics in all of world literature. It's a real tragedy that Anne died even younger than her sisters before she could write anything else. Four and a half stars. show less