Agnes Grey is about the trials and tribulations of a governess in the Victorian period. Agnes sets out to become a governess and despite setbacks, finally becomes valuable to a family and her charges. Eventually, she opens up her own school with her mother. The novel deals with such things as insubordinate children, the grievances of trying to teach incapable and ignorant students, rank materialism in society, issues of animal cruelty and animal welfare, etc. Other big themes include religion, love and marriage, constant preoccupations of the Victorian novel.
What struck me most about this novel is that Anne was regarded as the shyest and most timid of the sisters and that Agnes seemed to have a similar character. It is therefore interesting to see how such a character who is at the whim and mercy of those that dominate tries to stamp her own authority on the world. Can such wallflowers really make it in the wider world and make any difference to the dominant and their way of life, their education? The novel is ambiguous in its message about this. Some of Agnes’s rich and powerful young charges clearly repudiate her authority and her lessons. However, even when her charges fly in the face of her teaching, some of them still think enough of her to invite her into their homes and judge of their lives. The work is based on autobiography so one wonders if it is not wishful thinking on Anne’s part that she has her authority acknowledged by others and is valued.
Because the theme is about the establishment of authority it naturally involves questions of power in Victorian society. Agnes constantly comes up against the structures of power which she longs to be a small part of but is turned away. She is frequently humiliated and made to feel her own insignificance as a person. The novel is therefore quite interesting as a meditation on what power feels like to an outsider to the system of privilege and status, the centre of authority.
The most striking face of power and its corruption was when a beauty in the novel used her personal appearance to flirt with men and then turn them down when their intentions became serious. There is some meditation on beauty in the novel but it is indicative that power of any sort is seen to destroy and injure others – is this the basis of power as it operates? Does it always need a victim?
One disappointment of the novel – again a symptom of wishful thinking – was the happy ending of the novel. The heroine endures misery throughout but finally gets her reward. The problem with this was that it was completely unrealistic and went against the main message of the novel which is that the governess in Victorian society had to suffer unnecessarily, that occupations for women were degrading and insufficient. The ending just panders to the public which always wants a happy ending.
diary of a lone man 