One thing I think we can all be grateful for is that we weren’t born female in early Victorian England. The other thing we can be grateful for is that the lives and rights of women at that time were so restricted as to provide great subjects for the Brontë sisters. Of course I read Charlette’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights years ago, but with the new movie version of Jane Eyre out in theaters, I decided to read something by sister Anne. Anne Brontë died at age 28, so there weren’t too many choices: Agnes Grey, her autobiographical first novel, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I decided on Agnes Grey.
Agnes’s parents married under a bit of a dark star: although deeply in love, Mrs. Grey came from a wealthy family who objected to her marriage to a lowly rector. Mrs. Grey’s father disinherited her, but the Reverend and Mrs. Grey were able to get by and raise their family fairly comfortably on the small income generated by land owned by the Reverend. This, of course, does not make for a very engaging plot – happy marriage, well-loved, healthy children, adequate income, so this family had to – and did – fall upon hard times. To help the family finances, Agnes decided to take one of the few avenues available to well-bred girls and hire herself out as a governess. The bulk of this novel deals with the trials and tribulations that arose from that decision.
Poor Agnes had truly terrible luck with employers and their offspring. Anyone who complains about the way children behave today, or the way their parents coddle them, should open a copy of Agnes Grey. They’ll find that things haven’t really changed all that much. The first home in which she works is the Bloomfields, where she is put in charge of three perfectly awful children. Agnes is given responsibility with no authority over these three, and when she unable to make them either learn or behave, she is dismissed.
You would think this was enough to make her consider another line of work, but there weren’t many options available to her, so she puts herself out for hire once again. This time she ends up at the Murrays, where she is put in charge of two older girls – one vain and insipid, the other “outdoorsy” and uninterested in learning. However, it is an improvement over the Bloomfields, and Agnes stays on to see the girls grown.
Because this is a Brontë novel there is, of course, a thwarted romance, impoverishment, illness and death, all followed by a happy ending. The novel tends toward lengthy exposition on manners, morals, religion, etc. which drags it down and, I must admit, I skimmed in many places. Still, it was an interesting look at what life for Anne Brontë must have been like and, I suspect, far more realistic than the novels of her sisters.
I understand that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is Anne’s better work. Brontë scholars postulate that had she lived, Anne would have been the best writer and most successful of the three, so I may just give Tenant a try.
Grade: C
