Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

Source of book: I own this.

Anne Bronte is the forgotten Bronte sibling. Emily (Wuthering Heights) and Charlotte (Jane Eyre) are well known for their striking and successful novels. Their brother, Branwell, is at least remembered for never amounting to much and drinking himself to death. Poor Anne is as little remembered as the two older sisters, who died of the family curse (tuberculosis) in childhood. 

 Anne Bronte as sketched by her sister Charlotte

However, Anne too was a writer and poet. Agnes Grey, her first book, is largely autobiographical, and feels like an early effort, rather than a great book. Anne took a series of jobs as a governess during her late teens and twenties - it was about the only work available to a respectable middle-class woman at that time. It was not, shall we say, a particularly enjoyable job.

In this book, she tells of the two families she worked for longest. The first involved younger children who were little sociopaths. Anne doesn’t pull any punches here, even though she writes in the style of her time. These are not nice children, and they are the product of thoroughly dysfunction wealthy parents. The son, in a telling episode, enjoys killing baby birds. Agnes objects and interferes, only to be reprimanded by the mother, who says, “You seem to have forgotten that the creatures were all created for our convenience.” To mom, the amusement of a child takes precedence over the suffering of lesser creatures.

The strong point of Anne’s writing is evident in this section, as she has a keen eye for psychological detail. I have met children - and parents - like this over the years. A good shorthand would be “trust fund babies,” and our current president is a prime example of the lack of empathy and decency that is created when children are taught to consider their inferiors to be expendable and created for their amusement.

This arrangement does not last long, for obvious reasons. The rest of the book is concerned with the second family, and with Agnes’ romance. Because you have to have a romance. (And since Anne never did, she had to write one into her book.)

The second family is also highly dysfunctional, but in a less pernicious way. The eldest daughter is a great beauty, and enjoys toying with men - at least until she gets married to a rich, but unpleasant man. She regrets this marriage, but, no help for that. The second daughter is a tomboy, given to hanging out with her father and other men, swearing like a stable hand, and being as uncouth as possible. There are two boys as well, but they are sent away to boarding school, so they really don’t come into the story much.

This second family is interesting in part because the real life Anne formed relationships with the children they are based on, and kept in contact long after she left employment. I thought the characters of the daughters were well written and complex.

Agnes Grey also serves as somewhat of a defense of Anne’s parents and their choices. In the book, a woman born to (moderate) wealth marries a poor clergyman, and is disinherited for her trouble. Agnes then follows her mother’s path and marries a poor - but kind and decent - clergyman. In real life, there is no evidence that Anne’s mother was disinherited exactly, but she died of uterine cancer a year after Anne’s birth. While her father attempted to find a second wife, he never succeeded. Instead, his late wife’s unmarried sister came and lived with the family. Upon her death, she left a modest estate to the children, permitting them to write, rather than work as governesses. So there wasn’t quite the bad blood as in the novel. However, it does appear that there was a certain amount of second-guessing their choices.

As I noted, this book feels a bit uneven, like many first attempts. Even Charlotte, writing after Anne’s untimely death, defends the book while acknowledging its weaknesses. The romance feels a bit tacked on as well, and Mr. Weston feels undeveloped as a character. (Anne, like Charles Dickens, seems to write her own sex better than the opposite.) However, there are other parts of the book that are excellent. As I noted above, she shows a keen eye for the characters of the children, and also the arrogance and contempt of the upper classes.

I probably would have read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall if I owned it. I had this one, so I chose it. It is a fairly short and quick book, and not a bad read. The second book, however, is more ambitious, and outright scandalously feminist, from what I hear. Charlotte prevented its publication after Anne’s death, so it remained relatively unknown for years afterwards. This may be one reason why Anne isn’t as well known.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Source of Book: I own this.

Date originally posted on Facebook: July 10, 2010

This is another in the continuing series of books I probably should have read back in High School. In this case, I resisted reading it back then because it, along with Wuthering Heights, was a favorite book of the wrong kind of girl. Too many young women, who rarely read anything of substance, seemed to be drawn to the Brontes, and for the wrong reasons. I heard far too much mooning over Heathcliff and Rochester for my taste. I will here specifically exclude my sister, who did like this book. However, she read voraciously, and with excellent taste, and was never frivolous when it came to books, so I would give weight to her judgment.

I read Wuthering Heights for the first time a couple of years ago. It still is hard to believe that such an atmospheric and emotionally raw book could have been written by a woman at that time in history.

Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, is more in the form of a traditional novel with its typical Victorian story arc. The protagonist overcomes early hardship through hard work and good character, finding happiness in the end. The early chapters to a degree dwell on Jane’s suffering in a manner a bit foreign to modern sensibilities, although perhaps typical for the era in which it was written. It is in the middle of the book that the author finds her unique voice, and the story starts to ring true emotionally. 

Charlotte Bronte, 1850 portrait by George Richmond

Indeed, I found the strength of the novel to be its emotional trueness, if that term may be used. One thing that did surprise me is that Jane’s emotions and thoughts resonate, even for a male reader. I found it easy to identify with her as a person, as easily as with a well written male protagonist. Jane is a truly compelling and interesting character for herself alone. Several female authors of the era began at this time to write of women who rose above the Victorian ideal of the quiet and unobtrusive helpmeet, who triumphs through goodness alone. Jane Austen began the trend with her witty characters, and George Elliot and others continued it. Of the books I have read, however, Jane Eyre stands alone as a woman who is determined to find her own way in life, and meet men on her own terms, as an equal.

I think, too, that her determination to marry only for love was a bit revolutionary in its way. I imagine that this was a significant reason for the book’s popularity with young women. Perhaps all teenaged girls dream of the great romance with a dark, brooding man, who can be rescued from himself only by their charms. Unfortunately, I think that this idea has been taken far too literally by girls these days, who lack the experience or depth of knowledge to distinguish between an unfortunate good man and a truly bad man. I note that every murderer seems to get a marriage proposal.

I think too that there are many that naively mistake good men for St. John. The point is not that St. John is good, or that he is the safe choice. Rather, it is clear that St. John is selfish, ambitious, and incapable of love. In that sense, he is the religious version of Meredith’s egoist. He wishes to be the flame that draws the moths, to have a girl that is content to delight in his glory. It is in this way that the modern girl goes wrong. The “bad boy” that is sought is the mirror image of St. John, not of Rochester. The girl that chases the wicked man becomes the moth, delighting in the glory of the man of her imagination, ignoring the harsh reality.

I take the real lesson of Jane’s romance with Rochester to be the importance of finding a person of similar intelligence and depth. Each of them looks beyond the unattractive exterior of the other, and sees the love for art and literature, the kindness to the child, Adele, and a focus on something other than wealth and status. These lessons are perhaps even more important today, in an era when image is everything, and a spouse is all too often a status symbol. Perhaps some things never change. In past centuries, a woman would marry to please her family, to gratify their egos and desire to advance the family name. Now, women seem to choose mates based on what will impress their friends, someone to make them feel daring and unique, and, of course, to provide her with the lifestyle she wishes. Fortunately, a few of us still manage to find a best friend, someone to talk to about all subjects, serious and lighthearted.

This book also caused me to lament the decline of the novel in recent years, particularly the decline of the female protagonist. The days of Austen, Elliot, the Brontes, and others produced most of the memorable female authors. There was a golden age of the novel, to be sure, and in general there seems to be a decline in the craft. There are now two forms of writing: the pulp novel, and the “serious” novel. Pulp tends to have the good characters and plots these days, but by definition lacks the quality and depth of writing. Those authors that do focus on the quality are ashamed to write anything that might appeal to the unwashed masses, and so forgo appealing characters or compelling plots.

As my wife pointed out, starting with Kate Chopin, the trend among female authors was toward an oddly twisted feminist view. Unfortunately, this view was not of the admirable feminism of Jane Eyre: self sufficiency, hard work, moral character even at personal cost. The new feminism focused instead on selfishness. Men became seen as the cause of women’s unhappiness. Thus, a feminist act was now adultery, divorce, revenge. The female protagonist was no longer someone to identify with and admire, unless those values were the reader’s as well. To be fair, it is near impossible to find an admirable male character these days. I should also point out such authors as Willa Cather, who continued to write well for characters of both genders.

I’m sure I am forgetting a number of points I wished to make about this book. I enjoyed reading it, and marveled at the skill of the author. It still is incredible that a girl with so little experience could write like that as a first effort. I am eager to find a copy of Agnes Gray, to complete the trilogy, if you will.

Note: Since I originally wrote this about two years ago, I have discovered more modern literature with admirable female protagonists. My literary friends have assisted me, of course, and I have sought out some on my own.

I believe that there are two positive developments in the last couple of decades. First, there seems to have been a reaction against the dichotomy of “serious” versus “popular” with a number of authors writing books with high literary standards but that still speak to those outside the confines of academia and the literati. A few I have reviewed that fit this category are The Kite Runner, The Book Thief, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

The second development that I welcome is that the “men are the only thing that is keeping women back and therefore divorce is the ultimate feminist act” meme seems to have at least jumped the shark. Books like Eat, Pray, Love (more accurately described as Eat, Whine, Divorce) are firmly in the category of pulp now, and it is therefore acceptable for serious writers to cast a critical eye on the whole philosophy. For more on this issue, see my review of Running Away to Home.