Agnes Grey
by Anne Brontë
[Please note that this review does include spoilers.]
The eternal problem with writing a review–or thoughts of any kind–with regards to anything written by the Brontë sisters is that you inevitably want to write about the non-writing aspects of either Anne, Charlotte, or Emily. Once you begin to read something by either one of them your mind cannot help but to subconsciously wonder, “How many more books would they have written if they lived longer?” Emily made it to thirty and wrote one book Wuthering Heights before dying of tuberculosis, while Charlotte wrote four books (The Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette) and almost made it to forty years old before dying—possibly of complications from pregnancy, typhus, tuberculosis, or some combination of the first two. Anne lived to be twenty nine before tuberculosis took her away, leaving behind only two novels—The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey.
Agnes Grey begins with a straightforwardness indicative not only of the Victorian era but also of the matter-of-fact quality that all three Brontë women possessed so perfectly in their writing. The introductory paragraph of the book begins:
“All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge; I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others, but the world may judge for itself: shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture, and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend.”
Though Emily and Charlotte are usually placed above Anne in literary ranking, Agnes Grey was written in a much more realistic style which contrasts with Emily and Charlotte’s leaning towards a more romantic style. Agnes Grey is a woman who becomes a governess after her family has hit some financial hardship. She ultimately becomes a governess for two families in the book—first, the Bloomfields and then the Murrays—who are portrayed variously as materialistic, morally bankrupt, superficial, and have an impressive ability to not realize that their children are being ruined by the lack of love and discipline that only Agnes seems to grasp as being a default ability of a parent.
Throughout the book, Agnes is almost always fundamentally at odds with the children and their parents. The children are either ruthless with animals and enjoy torturing them (the Bloomfields) or are obsessed with looking good and being socially important (the Murrays). On the surface, this may seem like a typical English novel filled with unspectacular events that are written to sound more important than they actually are but Anne Brontë wrote Agnes Grey in the best possible way every novel aspires to: with humanity. Agnes Grey is someone who is fundamentally good and you ultimately want the best possible outcome to visit her life. We see her world through her words and we know that the two families she works with are ultimately unworthy of respect or appreciation. When Agnes begins to harbor feelings for Mr. Weston we are aware that they are the best possible match for one another and that they have unquestionably found each other’s true love.
Anne wrote Agnes, intentionally or not, in such a way that she comfortably fits the modern day definition of a feminist—a woman who persevered through everything while having never once compromised herself simply because of some vain reason. When she kills the baby birds so as to not let Tom have full reign in torturing them, we are aware that it is done so that he cannot torture them and not because she wants to hurt him or see what it is like to kill innocent creatures.
If you have any curiosity towards reading any of the Brontë’s writing, Agnes Grey is a great start (especially if, after reading the aforementioned excerpt from the book, you find the writing style to be pleasant). And, at less than two hundred pages this is not only an easy read but an excellent example of a novel that is direct and to the point—as evidenced by the ending. But, then again, why would a grand ending be necessary when we are already aware that a close-to-perfect life has already been achieved by Agnes?
