SOURCE: "A New Reading of Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey," in Brontë Society Transactions, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1987, pp. 113-8.

[In the following essay, Costello recounts the plot of Agnes Grey and examines the novel as one that "criticizes the corruption of moral and ethical values" in Victorian society.]

Anne Brontë's first novel, Agnes Grey, published in 1847, is ordinarily either ignored by literary critics or treated summarily as a charming though not too serious endeavour. It is an apparently simple story of a parson's daughter who endures the trials of a governess, and eventually marries the young minister she loves. Underneath this simplicity, however, is not only a realistic and unmelodramatic account of the life of a governess, but also a study of Victorian values. Through a portrayal of five different families, Anne Brontë gives us a microcosm of Victorian society, with five class levels. Through her analysis of these families, she criticizes the corruption of moral and ethical values in a society that is becoming increasingly materialistic.

Brontë's heroine, Agnes Grey, follows a particular pattern of development: she moves from the security of her family through an increasing sense of alienation as governess to a resolution in her attachment to Mr Weston and the establishment of a family of her own. We meet her first at home, a parsonage in the north of England. The description of her family life is typical of that of the country parsonage. A close and loving family, they lead a fairly insular life. Although the Reverend Richard Grey, the minister of the village and moorland parish, "was deservedly respected by all who knew him',' they kept much to themselves. As Agnes writes:

Our only intercourse with the world consisted in a stately tea-party, now and then, with the principal farmers and tradespeople of the vicinity (just to avoid being stigmatised as too proud to consort with our neighbours), and an annual visit to our paternal grandfather's (p. 394).

Financial necessity, however, forces both daughters to earn a living: Mary, the elder, paints and sells her pictures; Agnes decides to go out as a governess. Despite the family's protests, voiced in Mary's plea, "What would you do in a house full of strangers?" (p. 399), Agnes leaves for a post in a wealthy tradesman's house. Her feelings upon leaving her home and village are movingly portrayed.

As the story follows Agnes through two different posts as governess, and then as a visitor in the home of one of her former charges, we see her growing alienation from real inclusion in family life. As a governess she of course occupies an ambiguous position, regarded as neither servant nor family member, so although living in a home with a family, Anne is an outsider, within it.

Naϊvely thinking that her first employer, Mrs Bloomfield, will be "a kind, motherly woman" (p. 403), she is met by the cold, distant and formal mistress of Wellwood House. At least here Agnes is greeted by her employer, who shows her to her room, gives her lunch, and introduces her to the children she will be in charge of. In her next post she does not meet Mrs Murray until the second day; when she first arrives, she is casually led to the schoolroom by the butler, and then up to her room with only tea and bread as her solitary meal. Here she feels even more lonely and desolate than at Wellwood House.

The Bloomfield children are little horrors, and Agnes is trapped in the impossible position characteristic of her post, being responsible for their education and behaviour, but forbidden to discipline them. She is, in fact, at the mercy of the children whom she had dreamed of tenderly guiding and nurturing when she was at home in the parsonage.

At Wellwood, Agnes is an integral part of the family's routine, if not the recipient of their affection and regard. The Bloomfield family and the governess eat their midday meal together. Agnes is constantly with the children, even sharing a bedroom with the little girl, Mary Ann, and various adults periodically visit the schoolroom. Yet she has the esteem of none: the children scorn and tease her, the adults disdainfully discuss her behind her back.

Dismissed from her post (ironically for not being sufficiently firm with the children), Agnes leaves Wellwood for the parsonage, thinking that what she has learned from this experience is "to love and value my home" (p. 431). At the personage, however, she realizes that the necessity of earning her own living is even greater because of her father's ill health and his anxiety for his daughters' futures.

At her second post at Horton Lodge, not only is her entrance or welcome into the Murray family less formal or planned, but here she is less frequently included in family routines. She has all her meals in the schoolroom with her pupils. She sees Mrs Murray only occasionally, and Mr Murray more rarely and then only if they accidentally meet in the hall, or in the grounds of the estate. Although she is supposed to teach all four children, the boys soon go away to school, while the girls spend little time over their studies, deciding on their daily activities without consulting their governess. Agnes' duties are therefore even less essential than at the Bloomfields, and she becomes little more than a companion or chaperone. Here, too, she is held in little esteem by parents, children and servants alike, although the elder girl, Rosalie, begins to like her as time goes on.

Agnes leaves Horton Lodge, not because she is dismissed, but because her home and family has broken up. Her sister Mary has married and her father has died, and now Agnes and her mother plan to start a school together. This, however, necessitates leaving the parsonage, home to Agnes all her life, which grieves her; she must also say goodbye to the Reverend Edward Weston, with whom she has fallen in love.

Now the novel's plot begins to turn in a more positive direction as Agnes rejoins her mother in their new "abode"; but before its final resolution, she again experiences being an outsider within a strange family: she is invited by her former pupil, Rosalie Murray, to visit Ashby Park where she stays as a guest for several days. Despite the friendly greeting from Rosalie, who professes affection and friendship, Agnes not only has no role to fulfil as she did as a governess, but spends most of the day completely alone and completely removed from such little family activity as goes on among Lord and Lady Ashby, their baby, and old Lady Ashby. She leaves for home: "finding I could render myself so little serviceable, my residence at Ashby Park became doubly painful" (p. 538).

At this point she is reunited with Edward Weston and becomes his wife. Her mother, Mrs Alice Grey, insists on continuing to live on her own to run the school, but she will spend her vacations alternately with each daughter, thus becoming the one who unites the two families.

Agnes Grey's story not only illustrates a pattern of movement from alienation to attachment, but it provides a framework for Anne Brontë's more serious criticism of society.

Each family Agnes stays with is both increasingly materialistic and less a family, in Brontë's sense of the word. Each progressively demonstrates the corruption of moral and ethical values, and of the family virtues of love, harmony and cohesiveness. As Agnes moves from the parsonage, to Wellwood House (the "new but stately mansion" of the Bloomfields), to Horton Lodge (the large house and estate of Squire Murray), to Ashby Hall (the elegant mansion and park of Lord Ashby), each marriage becomes more socially prominent and "approved", but at the same time more false and unhappy. Agnes' marriage to the Reverend Edward Weston at the end of the novel reaffirms the moral and family values established initially in the picture of the Grey family.

Life at the parsonage demonstrates the importance of family and moral values over materialistic ones. All work together closely, in harmony, and the Grey marriage is a happy one based on love. Mrs Grey, a squire's daughter, had given up her luxurious life and inheritance to marry a poor country parson, but Agnes says "she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in the world" (p. 393). However, even here the growing materialism of Victorian society leaves its mark: Richard Grey has difficulty accepting the fact that his wife is truly happy in the simple parsonage, and wants to supplement the income from his incumbency and small property. A failed business venture undermines both his finances and his self-confidence, and his mental depression leads to physical illness. Anne Brontë, with acute psychological insight, writes that "the cheerfulness with which she [Alice Grey] bore her reverses, and the kindness which withheld her from imputing the smallest blame to him, were all perverted by this ingenious self-tormenter into further aggravations of his sufferings" (p. 397). The minister's illness and his retreat into depression forces the women in the family to think of various ways to survive, and Mrs Grey proves to be the stronger partner in this marriage through her ability to grapple with reality and through her skill in financial and household management.

When Agnes takes her place as governess in the Bloomfield family, she is going a step up in the social scale, for Mr Bloomfield is "a retired tradesman who had realized a very comfortable fortune" (p. 401). However, he offers Agnes only a meagre salary, and his general attitude toward her and toward his servants is one of rude contempt, characteristic of the nouveau riche whose ill treatment of their social inferiors seems necessary to bolster their own self-esteem.

Certainly the Bloomfield family as a whole, and each of its members, is despicable. Despite the appearance of the newly built but stately mansion with its formal gardens, the family life within is disrdant and corrupt. The marriage, though formally correct, seems quite loveless; at one point Agnes is an embarrassed witness to a sarcastic argument they have over the dinner menu. The children are unruly and untaught; adored by their mother, who views them as angels, they are actually ill-tempered, deceitful, and nasty. Furthermore, they are encouraged in their cruel treatment of helpless animals, particularly by their father and uncle, both whom are pictured as coarse, vulgar and arrogant men who drink to excess. Uncle Robson is also encouraging of the worst sexist extremes, teaching Mary Ann to value personal appearance and flattery, and young Tom to drink and swear.

Agnes despairs of being able to teach these children anything because they lack any moral sense: "They knew no shame; they scorned authority which had no terrors to back it; and as for kindness and affection, either they had no hearts, or such as they had were so strongly guarded, and so well concealed, that I, with all my efforts, had not yet discovered how to reach them" (p. 430). Agnes leaves Wellwood House hoping "that all parents were not like Mr and Mrs Bloomfield" and "certain all children were not like theirs. The next family must be different …" (p. 431).

The next family is another step up: Mr Murray of Horton Lodge is a country squire. Mrs Grey believes this higher social position will prove more suitable for her daughter, for she affirms, "Such are far more likely to treat you with proper respect and consideration than those purse proud trandespeople and arrogant upstarts" (p. 434).

The Murrays, however, live very un-family-centered lives: Mr Murray spends much of his time fox hunting and riding, while his wife goes to parties and dresses in fashion. They seem to care little for Agnes' teaching qualifications in "Music, singing, drawing, French, Latin and German" (p. 434). The boys are soon sent off to school, while the girls are to be prepared simply to take their prescribed place in upper class society.

The real corruption of values in this family is most evident in the fostering of the marriage of the eldest daughter, Rosalie, to Sir Thomas Ashby. Rosalie has been taught to value in marriage not love, respect and honesty, but status and money. Even though Sir Thomas is known to be dissipated and corrupt, his wife will become Lady Ashby of Ashby Park, and that is the prime goal of Rosalie and her mother. Mrs Murray is willing to sacrifice her daughter's happiness for status.

This materialism motivates all of their behaviour, and Rosalie's efforts are geared toward captivating potential suitors and eclipsing all others with her beauty and elegant appearance. The whole family goes to church every Sunday, the girls often twice, not for spiritual edification, but to be seen and admired. Even the few charitable acts by Rosalie and Matilda were performed largely for the "flattering homage" (p. 459) they received, or to appear to others to be concerned and charitable.

A steady contrast to both the Bloomfields and Murrays is the figure of Agnes Grey; she tries unsuccessfully to replace her charges' materialistic values with the values she had been taught at home, those of truthfulness, piety and compassion. These values lead her to two poor families, both cottagers near Horton Lodge, where, since affluence is not even within the realm of imagined possibility, the virtues of piety and simplicity have flourished. Agnes visits the family of Mark Wood (who is dying of consumption), and also the widow Nancy Brown, who keeps house for her fieldworker son. While reading the Bible to Nancy, Agnes comes to know the curate, Edward Weston better: his kindness, "strong sense … and ardent piety" (p. 471) reaffirms her faith in human goodness and strikes a common chord in her own heart.

It is when Agnes Grey visits the most socially prestigious home, Ashby Park, that she finds the most unhappy marriage and most disrupted family life. There are four family members under the one roof (Sir Thomas and Lady Ashby [Rosalie Murray], their infant daughter, and old Lady Ashby), each of whom lives an existence separate from the others, meeting only occasionally for formal, strained meals. Rosalie's marriage progresses beyond indifference or lovelesness to actual hatred; she tells Agnes when they see Sir Thomas riding through the estate, "I detest that man!" (p. 536). Rosalie has discovered that being Lady Ashby does not compensate for marriage to a gambler, drunkard and womanizer. Furthermore, she hates her mother-in-law who, she says, is "a tyrant, an incubus, a spy" (p. 533), and cannot bring herself to love even her baby, whom Sir Thomas had already rejected because it is a girl. Rosalie complains, "what pleasure can I have in seeing a girl grow up to eclipse me …" (p. 537) and adds, "I can't centre all my hopes in a child: that is only one degree better than devoting oneself to a dog" (p. 538). Rosalie's values have been so corrupted that Agnes fears she will not be able to find any comfort or happiness in life. Ashby Park, such a primary marriage goal for Rosalie and her mother, has become for its mistress a desolate prison.

The distinction that Anne Brontë makes between a house and a home is clarified in a conversation between Edward Weston and Agnes. They affirm that a home is not merely a place one lives in, but a repository of affection and domestic enjoyment. Edward and Agnes share not only this definition, but the moral and ethical values that bring them together.

It is obviously relevant and interesting that the type of family in this novel that epitomizes the ideal character of family life is that of the country parson, the type in which Anne Brontë herself lived in Haworth. In the novel it is illustrated in the home of the Reverend Richard and Alice Grey, in that of Mary and the Reverend Mr Richardson (whose forthcoming marriage Agnes describes to her pupil, Rosalie), and, finally, in that of Edward and Agnes. These are all marriages based on love whose family values derive from moral ones. Agnes recalls the moment when she and Edward pledged their troth:

I shall never forget that glorious summer evening, and always remember with delight that steep hill, and the edge of the precipice where we stood together, watching the splendid sunset mirrored in the restless world of waters at our feet—with hearts filled with gratitude to Heaven, and happiness, and love—" (p. 547).

My analysis of Agnes Grey is derived from a larger study I have done of the Brontës which reveals that the family was the dominant social structure and emotional force in their lives and that family is the thematic and structural core in all seven of the sisters' novels². Though varied in subject and approach, each novel posits a similar pattern of development for its protagonist. Agnes Grey is characteristic of the heroine/hero whose family connection is already disrupted or fragmented at the outset, or soon becomes so; a heroine/hero who grows increasingly alienated from society/life, an alienation expressed through lack of inclusion within a family; who gradually rejoins society through attachment to another or others, culminating in full participation in a family of her/his own.

Agnes' movement toward love-attachment is handled largely within the Victorian social norm, but even within this conservatism emerges the Brontes' didactic use of the family to reform society: in Agnes Grey, as in the six other Brontë novels, family is used to identify the deterioration of society's values. The corruption of moral values by a growing materialism is seen in the distortion of family values and affection.

Therefore, viewing Agnes Grey within this larger framework, Anne Brontë's early novel assumes a new significance as both a social statement and as a deliberately structured work of art.

Notes

¹Agnes Grey (1847; reprint in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey, London: J. M. Dent, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1922), p. 393. All page references in parentheses within the text refer to this 1922 edition.

² For a full discussion of the importance of family to the Brontës, consult my PhD dissertation, The Parson's Daughters: The Family Worlds of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1983, The Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities, USA.