Villette

Summary (from the publisher): With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There, she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginevra Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey—a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.

 

Review: Villette tells the story of Lucy Snowe, who leaves behind a tragic past in England to try to begin anew in the fictional French-speaking town of Villette. Lucy successfully rises to become an instructor in a boarding school, but confronts continued sadness and longing in her personal life. Lucy is thwarted in her romantic interests, confined to merely watching others marry and move forward in their own lives.

 

At heart, Lucy's story is that of a woman trying to move beyond an unspecified tragic past. Lucy sets out alone, leaving behind the only place and people she knows to start fresh in Villette. The very fact that her childhood and family are never mentioned reveal that she must surely be the lone survivor of her family. But Lucy does make it clear that she has no home and no family left to her in England; "If I failed in what I now designed to undertake, who, save myself, would suffer? If I died far away from -home, I was going to say, but I had no home - from England, then, who would weep?" (45).  Indeed, it is significant that Bronte wrote this novel after her own tragic loss of remaining siblings and parent. This is a novel of a life in mourning, or rather, the attempt to live in spite of a shroud of grief.

 

However, despite Lucy's best efforts to create a new life for herself, she can never quite shrug off reminders of her tragic past. She falls ill and when she awakes, imagines that she is yet again in her godmother's house in England, for she recognizes many of the objects in the room. She discovers that she in fact in her godmother's house, for Mrs. Bretton had relocated to Villette and the man she knew as Dr. John is in fact her godmother's son Graham Bretton. This rediscovery of previous friends and acquaintances occurs multiple times in the novel. Although it was difficult for me to find believable, it does underscore the cyclical nature of Lucy's emotional state; just when she seems to be moving forward and beyond her grief, she comes right back to where she started.

 

Regrettably, I found this novel far less enjoyable than Jane Eyre. The odd device of new friends suddenly being revealed as old friends seemed contrived. My copy of the book failed to provide translations of the many episodes of French dialogue to my frustration. Yet more than that, Lucy's story is largely a non-event. After her rather harrowing journey to Villette and securing of employment, her life changes little.

 

This is a novel built upon grief, both in the characters and the author. It seems as if Bronte was speaking directly to the reader based on her own experiences when Lucy says, "I do believe there are some human beings so born, so reared, guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered, selfish beings, but Nature's elect, harmonious and benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind attributes" (419). Yet Bronte and her fictional creation Lucy are not these charmed and happy individuals, but rather the type that are beset by loss and misfortune, condemned to a life filled with grief.

 

Stars: 3