SOURCE: "Public Themes and Private Lives: Social Criticism in Shirley," in Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter, 1968, pp. 74-84.

[In this essay, Shapiro challenges the conventional criticism that the public and private realms in the novel are unconnected.]

From the outset, critics of Charlotte Brontë's third novel, Shirley (published in 1849), have said that the book lacks unity. It has been charged repeatedly that there is no correlation in it between the social themes—for example, the Luddite rioting of the turn of the nineteenth century—and the private ones—the two love stories at the center of the book. Thus, G. H. Lewes asserts: "Shirley . . . is not a picture; but a portfolio of random sketches for one or more pictures. The authoress never seems distinctly to have made up her mind as to what she was to do; whether to describe the habits and manners of Yorkshire and its social aspects in the days of King Lud, or to paint character, or to tell a love story."¹ More recently, Miss Ratchford calls Shirley "the poorest of Charlotte Brontë's novels": " . . . it is cumbered and weighted down by too much that is taken directly from observation and the Leeds Mercury. .. .² " Asa Briggs, who sympathizes with Charlotte Bronte's intention in the book, states: ".. . it is not concerned with one theme but with a bundle of loosely connected—sometimes unconnected—themes. It lacks compactness and integration."³ Finally, R. B. Heilman implies that there is a tug-of-war in the novel between Charlotte Brontë's social concerns and her private ones: " . . . Charlotte cannot keep it a social novel. Unlike [Robert Penn] Warren, who in the somewhat similar Night Rider chose to reflect the historical economic crisis in the private crisis of the hero, Miss Brontë loses interest in the public and slides over into the private." ⁴

One cannot separate the public and private themes of Shirley, just as one cannot separate the public and private lives of its central characters. Rather, the "historical economic" crises of the outer world of the novel are exactly reflected in the private crises of these characters. On the one hand, against the historical background of the Luddite rioting and Wellington's campaign against Napoleon in the Peninsula, Charlotte Brontë depicts a completely selfish society. On the other hand, in the love stories, she presents individuals who either embody the false values of that society, or who are victimized by them. She shows a society torn apart by conflicting motives—business vs. labor, Tory vs. Whig, manufacturer vs. patriot. She shows us characters who are similarly torn apart. Robert Moore cannot be a complete human being, because he is a businessman first. Caroline Helstone cannot fulfill herself as a woman because she is not rich enough to marry. Robert does not share her view that human feeling is at least as important as profits. Shirley Keeldar and Louis Moore are each so proud, in their different ways, that the class barriers which separate them seem unbridgeable. A central statement describing the world of Shirley is made about halfway through the book by William Farren, almost a touchstone character. Farren, a workingman, notes that most people are too bound by self-interest and social conventions to try to know each other: '"Human natur' [he tells Caroline and Shirley] .. . is nought but selfishness. It is but excessive few, it is but just an exception here and there . . . that being in a different sphere, can understand t' one t' other, and be friends wi'out slavishness o' one hand, or pride o' t' other'" (II, 9).⁵ This theme, selfishness, the lack of sympathy between people, connects everything—public or private—in the novel.⁶

Charlotte Brontë begins by indicting national selfishness. She castigates the people of England because, during the troubled period of the novel, they had sacrificed patriotism and honor to their bellies and pocketbooks: "National honour was become a mere empty name, of no value in the eyes of many, because their sight was dim with famine; and for a morsel of meat they would have sold their birthright." The author especially criticizes those who ignore human concerns—the businessmen, for instance, who think that their machines are more important than people: " . . . it would not do to stop the progress of invention, to damage science, by discouraging its improvements. The war could not be terminated, efficient relief could not be raised—there was no help then—so the unemployed underwent their destiny: ate the bread and drank the waters of affliction" (I, 30). The nation was split because everyone was looking to his self-interest. The businessman "loved" his machines; the workingman was almost ready for revolution: "Misery generates hate. These sufferers hated the machines which they believed took the bread from them; they hated the buildings which contained those machines; they hated the manufacturers who owned those buildings" (I, 30-31). ⁷

The businessman's attitude toward his workers has its counterpart in the attitude of gentlefolk toward their "inferiors." Just as the manufacturer uses his laborer as a tool, so the fine lady uses her governess as though she were not human. As one of these fine ladies reportedly says: "'There were hardships . . . in the position of governess: doubtless they had their trials; but . . . it must be so. . . . Governesses . . . must ever be kept in a sort of isolation; it is the only means of maintaining that distance which the reserve of English manners and the decorum of English families exact'" (II, 65). ⁸

Ironically, when it comes to human relationships, Tories turn out to be the same as liberals. Old Helstone, Caroline's uncle, is a professed Tory, a believer in King and country, right and might, law and order. Though he is a minister of the Gospels, he is "a man almost without sympathy, ungentle, prejudiced, and rigid" (I, 37). He is no Christian, therefore. Complacent and self-righteous, he has no idea of the sorrows of others, especially of women, whom he regards as an inferior species. On the other hand, Hiram Yorke, a wealthy landowner and a more or less typical Yorkshireman, is a "liberal." He claims to believe in the doctrines of the French and American revolutions. But in practice he upholds only the "equality" of those who are no threat to him: ".. . at heart he was a proud man: very friendly to his workpeople, very good to all who were beneath him, and submitted quietly to be beneath him, but haughty as Beelzebub to whomsoever the world deemed . . . his superior." Exactly like his political enemy, Helstone, he lacks sympathy for others: "The want of general benevolence made him very impatient of . . . all faults which grated on his strong, shrewd nature. . . . As he was not merciful, he sometimes could wound and wound again, without noticing how much he hurt, or caring how deep he thrust" (I, 48-49).

This is a world where utilitarianism is the official creed. All the men in the novel, no matter what their political views, agree with the view of marriage expressed by Peter Malone, a hardheaded curate: "'If there is one notion I hate more than another, it is that of marriage .. . in the vulgar weak sense, as a mere matter of sentiment; two beggarly fools agreeing to unite their indigence by some fantastic tie of feeling. . . . But an advantageous connexion, such as can be formed in consonance with dignity of views, and permanency of solid interests, is not so bad . . . ' " (I, 22). In the novel, men and women seem to have nothing in common. Old Helstone is most attentive to the least intelligent of the Sykes girls, because "at heart, he could not abide sense in women: he liked to see them as silly, as light-headed, as vain, as open to ridicule as possible; because they were then in reality what he held them to be, and wished them to be—inferior . . ." (I, 127). Caroline Helstone is completely separated from Robert Moore, the man she loves, because she has no access to his thoughts or feelings: " . . . he was rapt from her by interests and responsibilities in which it was deemed such as she could have no part" (I, 190).

Certainly at this point one observes the relationship between public and private themes in Shirley. The "responsibilities" which keep Moore from Caroline are his all-consuming desire to succeed in business and to restore his family's fortune and honor. In describing Moore, Charlotte Brontë lashes out at the selfish individual, the man who substitutes materialistic for human values. Robert Moore, who reflects society's values, is the very embodiment of the social criticism of Shirley.

Moore is the complete businessman. His trade, mill, and machinery are his "gods"; the Orders in Council are "the seven deadly sins"; Castlereagh is his "Antichrist"; and "the war-party his legions" (I, 23). He sees existence in terms of the business relationship, of profits: "Not being a native, nor for any length of time a resident of the neighbourhood, he did not sufficiently care when the new inventions threw the old work-people out of employ: he never asked himself where those to whom he no longer paid weekly wages found daily bread . . ." (I, 29). ⁹ Like other businessmen of his day, he opposes the war against Napoleon, and criticizes Wellington's efforts in the Peninsular campaign: " . . . Moore was a bitter Whig—a Whig, at least, as far as opposition to the war-party was concerned: that being the question which affected his own interests; and only on that question did he profess any British policies at all" (I, 37-38). Finally, he has no time for personal relationships. Marriage too is a business proposition. He will not consider marrying Caroline, who he knows is penniless, because he realizes that such a match would mean "down-right ruin" for him.

Moore is that phenomenon so common to Victorian literature—the divided man. As Caroline tells him, he is one person to the people in his house, and a completely different person to his workers. He is one thing in his parlor, reading aloud: "almost-animated, quite gentle and friendly" and something else the next morning in his mill—"frozen up again" (I, 84). He can talk to Caroline one evening, because as he says, "'I have left the tradesman behind me in the Hollow. Your kinsman alone stands before you.'" There is, as he realizes, a sharp cleavage between "cousin Robert" and "Mr. Moore" (I, 136).

His view of life will not allow him to be whole. In his eyes, '"Men in general are a sort of scum'" (I, 91). He is closed: "The secrets of business—complicated and often dismal mysteries—were buried in his breast, and never came out of their sepulchre . . ." (I, 137). He feels as though he "were sealed in a rock" (I, 180). He is blind and deaf. When he sees Miss Mann, an old spinster, all he notes is that she is "shrivelled . . . livid, and loveless." All he hears is her "vinegar discourse." He makes no attempt to understand her life; worst, he does not see the kindness beneath her unpleasant exterior (I, 197).

Though not affected in the same way as is Robert Moore, the other major characters in Shirley are nevertheless as deeply affected by the selfish society they live in and have to respond to. Thus, Louis Moore, Robert's brother, is simply a "satellite" to the snobbish Sympson family, his employers. Since he is a lowly tutor, no one in the family has to notice him or treat him like a human being (here is another version of the "governess theme" or the relationship of the businessman to his workers). Though his pupil, Harry, admires him, for the rest of the family Louis does not even exist. The Sympson "daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed, by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. . . . The most spirited sketch from his fingers was a blank to their eyes, the most original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears" (II, 147).

Like his brother, however, Louis is partially to blame for his isolation. He accepts a view of the world that is almost exactly like Robert's: "'I approve nothing Utopian,'" he tells his pupil. '"Look life in its iron face: stare Reality out of its brassy countenance'" (II, 193). He has the strong pride of the poor man, who refuses to reveal his feelings for fear that he will look as though he is begging for favors. He cannot express his love for Shirley, since he fears a rebuff: " . . . it is well for a Sir Philip Nunnely to redden when he meets [Shirley's] eye: he may permit himself the indulgence of submission . . . but if one of her farmers were to show himself susceptible and sentimental, he would merely prove his need for a strait waistcoat. . . . no serf nor servant of hers have I ever been; but I am poor, and it behoves me to look to my self-respect—not to compromise an inch of it" (II, 203). Louis' pride here leads him astray. He misinterprets remarks, suffers imaginary slights. In effect, he is guilty of the false pride he thinks he is struggling against; he himself makes wealth and caste a barrier to love.

The woman Louis loves, Shirley Keeldar, seems at first to be the character most free of the ties of the world. She has glorious visions of the role of woman, seeing woman as coequal with life, with strength, with power. Yet even Shirley has limitations which make her guilty of inhumanity. For example, though she castigates Mr. Yorke for his pride that only serves to separate people, she has great pride herself. She berates her companion, Mrs. Pryor, for not flinging open her manor, Fieldhead, at a time of crisis: "That at such a time Fieldhead should have evinced the inhospitality of a miser's hovel, stung her haughty spirit to the quick . . ." (II, 44). She hurts Mrs. Pryor terribly. As the latter says, Shirley "should have known my character well enough by this time," should have known her shyness and painful lack of self-confidence (Π, 51).

Worst of all, Shirley is not always true to herself, true to her own visions. In her long story, "The First Blue-Stocking," composed when she was a young girl, Shirley pictured the "marriage" of Genius with humanity, whom she represented as an orphan girl. But she seems content to preserve Genius for herself, and to forget about humanity. Even though she is a person, who, if she wants, can get along with everyone, in her pride she sometimes cuts herself off from people. For example, when she thinks that she has been bitten by a mad dog, she refuses to seek help from anyone. There is some truth in Louis Moore's attack: '"You disdain sympathy .. . all must be locked up in yourself. . . . nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence. . . . Nobody has the honour, the intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder in England on which you would rest your hand for support. .. . Of course you must live alone'" (II, 210-11). Pride dictates Shirley's behavior toward Louis. Because she is not sure how Louis feels about her, she alternates between hauteur and humility—" . . . now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the monied heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors . . ." (II, 174).

Shirley's friend, Caroline Helstone, on the other hand, has little pride. Closer to the typical Brontë heroine, she is the victim of society. Though she is not literally an orphan like Jane Eyre, she is virtually one. She does not know her mother; she has only the bitterest memories of her father. She lives with her uncle, who, though he treats her kindly—in the sense of feeding and clothing and sheltering her—never really talks to her. Since she is "just" a woman, he makes no attempt to understand what she thinks or feels.

Caroline is the victim of a society which gives her nothing to do—since she is "respectable"—and has no understanding of her needs. She is the victim of this world where selfish men dominate and "feeling" is ignored. She is the victim—again because she is respectable—of a world where she cannot speak out and express her love freely. In Caroline's story, therefore, the social and private themes of Shirley again coalesce. In Chapter 10, called "Old Maids," Charlotte Brontë places Caroline's dilemma—her unrequited love—in its social context. The chapter opens with an account of the progress of the war in Spain. Napoleon at this point is still victorious. English businessmen are crying for the war to end: " . . . they demanded peace on any terms; men like Yorke and Moore—and there were thousands whom the war placed where it placed them, shuddering on the verge of bankruptcy—insisted on peace with the energy of desperation." This, the author feels, indicates a national selfishness—"All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish, and taken in bodies they are intensely so" (I, 84). Against such a social background, Caroline's protest in the chapter takes on a larger significance. When she describes the "hollowness, mockery, want, craving" that mark the life of an old maid, one feels that Caroline is not simply a lonely woman, who thinks she is fettered by her life and circumstances. She has become Charlotte Brontë's symbol of all those victimized, of all people who are at the mercy of the selfish men, who, having no honor themselves, will sacrifice everything to their own interests.

Typically, Charlotte Brontë offers her cure for this society in individual, human terms. Society can change only when the people in it change. The novelist thus calls for the breakdown of reserve and pride, for the opening of the heart to the needs of others, and for a new way of seeing.

Robert Moore, for example, quite literally is made to see what life is like for the poor:

While I was in Birmingham [he tells Yorke] I looked a little into reality, considered closely .. . the causes of the present troubles of this country. . . . I went where there was no occupation and no hope. I saw some, with naturally elevated tendencies and good feelings, kept down amongst sordid privations and harassing griefs. I saw many, originally low, and to whom lack of education left scarcely anything but animal wants, disappointed in those wants . . . and desperate as famished animals; I saw what taught my brain a new lesson, and filled my breast with fresh feelings. I have no intention to profess more softness or sentiment man I have hitherto professed.... I should resist a riotous mob just as heretofore . . . but I should do it now chiefly for the sake and security of those . . . misled. Something there is to look to .. . beyond a man's personal interest, beyond the advancement of well-laid schemes, beyond even the discharge of dishonouring debts. To respect himself, a man must believe he renders justice to his fellow-men.

(II, 245-46.)

In much the same way, Moore is made to perceive that his view of love as another sort of business relationship is wrong. He had thought of Shirley as a possible wife because she was rich and could help him in his business, whereas Caroline, dowryless, could not. Like a lesser Oedipus, Robert had let his pride blind him to the truth. He had thought that when Shirley was friendly to him she was in love and would be an easy conquest. As soon as Shirley discovered his feelings, however, she removed his blinkers: '"Your sight is jaundiced: you have seen wrong; your mind is warped: you have judged wrong; your tongue betrays you: you now speak wrong. I never loved you. . . . My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of affection for me'" (II, 237-38). Moore is overcome. What he had thought was the only reality—hard cash, profits, his interests—has proved to be unimportant, at least as measured against the terrible conditions he saw when he broke out of his narrow limits. Similarly, his pride has been crushed by Shirley. As he tells Yorke, in an apt metaphor: "'The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill: the boiler, which I take to be my heart, is fit to burst'" (II, 233).

Robert's punishment fits his crime. He is shot by a leader of the faction opposed to him, and now he learns, through experience, what it is like to be helpless in someone's hands, to be totally dependent. The only reason Yorke takes him in after the attack is that he is helpless: "Well did Mr. Yorke like to have power, and to use it: he had now between his hands power over a fellow-creature's life; it suited him" (II, 267). Once inside the Yorke house, Robert is treated like a baby by the "dragon" nurse, Mrs. Horsfall. In a complete reversal of roles, his doctor treats him as he, Robert, had formerly treated his workers. Dr. MacTurk regards him "as a damaged piece of clock-work, which it would be creditable . . . to set a-going again" (II, 271).

At the end, then, there is a transformation of Robert's values. Whereas earlier, his home had not meant much to him—"its air of modest comfort semed to possess no particular attraction for its owner" (I, 66)—after his long stay with the Yorkes he tells his sister, "'I am pleased to come home'" (II, 306). Whereas earlier, "progress" had meant only the improvement of his own business, after he has seen Birmingham, he has enlarged his view to include everyone. He envisions the transformation of the valley, with the idea that there will be work for all men who want it: '"Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed, shall come to Hollow's Mill from far and near, and Joe Scott [his foreman] shall give them work, and Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill [Shirley's housekeeper] shall mete them a portion till the first pay-day'" (II, 360).

It is significant that Robert sees Louis Moore as his coruler, for Charlotte Brontë uses the language of government to depict the break-down of pride between Louis and Shirley. Obviously, she here means to underline the connection between political and personal themes. In the scene where they finally reveal their feelings, Louis and Shirley try to form the basis for a relationship between equals. She asks him to "be good" to her, to "never tyrannize." In turn, he asks her to let him breathe, to "not bewilder" him (II, 336). She denies that her wealth and his poverty will make any difference between them. She asks for his aid: '" . . . teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property; but . . . to share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. .. . Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always.'" (II, 338). Up to this point, Shirley, as the mistress of Fieldhead, has been the ruler of a considerable property, but now "she abdicated without a word of struggle" (II, 352). She sees her marriage not only as the consummation of her love, but as a change almost political in its implications: '"Louis [she commented later] . . . would never have learned to rule, if she had not ceased to govern: the incapacity of the sovereign had developed the powers of the premier'" (II, 353). Louis, at the end, is a wise judge who helps solve the problems of all the people in the area. He is a wise governor who never would have come to power and fulfillment if he had not learned to look at reality differently and to break the shell of his isolating pride.

In this way, the reader is prepared for the conclusion of Shirley, where history and private life come together. Writing an historical novel, Charlotte Brontë shows her awareness that time does not stop with the close of her book. She indicates that Wellington, a hero at the end of the Peninsular campaign, was later reviled. She indicates that Robert Moore's idea of progress—his cottages and mills and highways—was not totally beneficent, since it despoiled much of the beauty of the countryside. She even notes that men like Moore had to continue to struggle to make a living, since times were not always as good as they were after the Napoleonic wars. But she at least points the way to a better society. Having shown that people can change, she implies that society's values can also change. Thus, unlike Jane Eyre, Shirley has a double happy ending, involving both the central characters and society, the private and the public themes.

With the end of the war in the Peninsula, and the revocation of the Orders in Council, the lovers can be united. The dreary past is over; the concluding words are couched, symbolically, in the present tense: "It is August: the bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire but through England: from Spain, the voice of the trumpet has sounded long: it now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine together; the Hollow's-mill work-people will be assembled for a like festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church . . ." (II, 360-61). With the end of the war has come the end of Robert's struggles, the end of selfishness—in the individual and in society—and love can prevail.

Notes

¹ "Currer Bell's Shirley," Edinburgh Review, XCI (1850), 85.

² Fannie E. Ratchford, The Brontës' Web of Childhood (New York, 1941), p. 214. Miss Ratchford goes on to say that Shirley's "leading characters save it from actual failure," but this only implies that there is a split between the characters in the novel and its social and historical background.

³ "Private and Social Themes in Shirley," Brontë Society Transactions, XIII (1958), [206].

⁴ "Charlotte Brontë's 'New' Gothic," in From Jane Austen to Joseph Conrad: Essays Collected in Memory of James T. Hillhouse, eds. Robert C. Rathburn and Martin Steinman, Jr. (Minneapolis, 1958), p. 123.

⁵ T. J. Wise and J. A. Symington, eds. Shirley: A Tale, The Shakespeare Head Brontë, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1931). All references in the text are to this edition.

⁶ Jacob Korg thinks the theme is "romantic egoism." Korg divides the characters into groups, with those who "choose to be guided by feeling" opposed to those who "conform to custom or common sense" ("The Problem of Unity in Shirley," NCF, XII [1957], 126-27). Korg's approach to the novel is completely different from mine, since for the most part he is not really concerned with Charlotte Brontë as a social critic.

⁷ Asa Briggs notes that Charlotte Brontë's primary concern here was human: "She was completely uninfluenced by political economy. . . . She concentrated on the human plight of the poor. . . . " He points out the power of her statement, "Misery generates hate," noting that it was used as a motto by Sir William Beveridge, one of the architects of Britain's welfare state ("Private and Social Themes in Shirley," p. 215).

⁸ Briggs, then, is wrong when he says that the governess theme "is not related at all . . . to the Luddite background" ("Private and Social Themes in Shirley," p. 217). They are both manifestations of the selfishness that pervades society.

⁹ Passages such as this convince me that Korg is incorrect when he says that despite his stand, Robert is a heroic figure: "Moore's stand against his workmen is noble because it is an individual action . . ." ("The Problem of Unity in Shirley," p. 133). G. H. Lewes is closer to the truth, I think, when he says that Robert is "sordid." "He will be universally condemned for all our better instincts rebel against him." It is interesting that Lewes goes on to condemn Charlotte Brontë for making such a man her hero: "The authoress will appeal in vain here to the truth of such sordidness—the truth of thus discarding a real passion in favour of an ambitious project" ("Currer Bell's Shirley," p. 87).