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A review by terrahome
Villette by Charlotte Brontë
5.0
"It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well, the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass, the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed, buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest?"
Where to even begin with this novel... From the beginning, Charlotte Bronte is playful in the way she constructs and presents Lucy's narration and, by extension, her character to the reader. Lucy's opening description of Bretton and her time spent there is enough to start to paint a picture of her, mainly in the ways she claims she finds joy in the stagnancy of the setting. Yet, at the same time, it becomes clear there is something very avoidant about this storyteller. She begins not by revealing something about herself as Jane Eyre does in her opening chapter, but rather focuses on the setting of her vacation and the appearance of her Godmother. It isn't until the quotation above at the beginning of Chapter 4, after the reader is told the story of Graham Bretton and his relationship with the young and melancholy Polly Home, that we even really begin following a narrative where Lucy is the protagonist. Even then, she hides and obfuscates. She does not reveal the tragedy of her family and past that she hints at, and she never will over the course of the following pages. To some readers, this will be insufferable. Lucy is a narrator who refuses to reveal or exposit on her interiority except to underline her desire to remain on the sidelines, to disappear, to repress her desires for anything above the most basic necessities of employment and survival. She often even hides important narrative facts from the reader, such as the "revelation" of Dr. John's true identity.
Personally though, I think Lucy is what makes this novel so compelling and also innovative for its time. Here, Charlotte Bronte is experimenting with first person narration in ways that are quite modernist. Through her unreliability--the details she hides, the observations she makes--the reader is given a psychological portrait of Lucy Snowe. Lucy is traumatized--her tragic past has left her unable to cope with loss or abandonment and as a result she has cut herself off from the world in the hopes of regaining control over her own life and agency. After all, if she has no emotional attachments, she can theoretically focus herself entirely on surviving and thriving in a society that disenfranchises independent women. Lucy's arc throughout the narrative is coming to reconnect with her desire for intimacy as well as her reckoning with the true forces that disrupt her life. In the end, the thing that gets in the way of her attachments isn't herself really, but society--it's misconceptions and traditions. This is outlined in the fictional and foreign (to the British reader) setting of Villette, where some customs differ, but the whims and cruelty of systemic forces and the aristocracy remain largely the same.
The ambiguous ending will likely be what makes the reader walk away from the novel ultimately loving or hating it. As much as that ambiguity pains me in its implications, I appreciate Charlotte Bronte's brutal honesty and unwillingness to give easy answers. For women like Lucy Snowe, who sought to claim power over their own agency during the Vicorian era, their narratives would rarely conclude with happy endings. Lucy is the kind of complex and compelling woman lead that even today is still elusive in media--frustrating yet equally compelling in flaws and strengths. It's portrayal of living in the aftermath of trauma, of grappling with coping mechanisms that protect but hurt oneself, still rings painfully true even today.
Where to even begin with this novel... From the beginning, Charlotte Bronte is playful in the way she constructs and presents Lucy's narration and, by extension, her character to the reader. Lucy's opening description of Bretton and her time spent there is enough to start to paint a picture of her, mainly in the ways she claims she finds joy in the stagnancy of the setting. Yet, at the same time, it becomes clear there is something very avoidant about this storyteller. She begins not by revealing something about herself as Jane Eyre does in her opening chapter, but rather focuses on the setting of her vacation and the appearance of her Godmother. It isn't until the quotation above at the beginning of Chapter 4, after the reader is told the story of Graham Bretton and his relationship with the young and melancholy Polly Home, that we even really begin following a narrative where Lucy is the protagonist. Even then, she hides and obfuscates. She does not reveal the tragedy of her family and past that she hints at, and she never will over the course of the following pages. To some readers, this will be insufferable. Lucy is a narrator who refuses to reveal or exposit on her interiority except to underline her desire to remain on the sidelines, to disappear, to repress her desires for anything above the most basic necessities of employment and survival. She often even hides important narrative facts from the reader, such as the "revelation" of Dr. John's true identity.
Personally though, I think Lucy is what makes this novel so compelling and also innovative for its time. Here, Charlotte Bronte is experimenting with first person narration in ways that are quite modernist. Through her unreliability--the details she hides, the observations she makes--the reader is given a psychological portrait of Lucy Snowe. Lucy is traumatized--her tragic past has left her unable to cope with loss or abandonment and as a result she has cut herself off from the world in the hopes of regaining control over her own life and agency. After all, if she has no emotional attachments, she can theoretically focus herself entirely on surviving and thriving in a society that disenfranchises independent women. Lucy's arc throughout the narrative is coming to reconnect with her desire for intimacy as well as her reckoning with the true forces that disrupt her life. In the end, the thing that gets in the way of her attachments isn't herself really, but society--it's misconceptions and traditions. This is outlined in the fictional and foreign (to the British reader) setting of Villette, where some customs differ, but the whims and cruelty of systemic forces and the aristocracy remain largely the same.
The ambiguous ending will likely be what makes the reader walk away from the novel ultimately loving or hating it. As much as that ambiguity pains me in its implications, I appreciate Charlotte Bronte's brutal honesty and unwillingness to give easy answers. For women like Lucy Snowe, who sought to claim power over their own agency during the Vicorian era, their narratives would rarely conclude with happy endings. Lucy is the kind of complex and compelling woman lead that even today is still elusive in media--frustrating yet equally compelling in flaws and strengths. It's portrayal of living in the aftermath of trauma, of grappling with coping mechanisms that protect but hurt oneself, still rings painfully true even today.