The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Villette
Villette, a novel by
C.
Brontë
, published
1853
.
The novel, like its predecessor
The Professor
(then unpublished), is based on the author's experiences in Brussels, here renamed Villette, and also has as its centre a pupil–teacher relationship. The narrator,
Lucy
Snowe
, poor, plain, and friendless, finds herself a post as teacher in a girls' school in Villette, where she wins the respect of the capable, if unscrupulous, headmistress, Mme Beck, and gains authority over the boisterous girls. She becomes deeply attached to the handsome John Bretton, the school's English doctor, in whom she recognizes an acquaintance from her childhood, the son of her own godmother; she watches his infatuation with the shallow and flirtatious Ginevra Fanshawe, followed by a happier love for his childhood friend Paulina Home, and represses her own strong feelings for him. These feelings gradually attach themselves to the waspish, despotic,...
[The entire page is 313 words long]
Join eNotes
The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:
