Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I felt I needed to read more by the Bronte sisters. I have read Wuthering Heights, which I love, and seen various productions of Jane Eyre but studiously avoided reading it. (We could have read it at school and friends suggested it, but our teacher felt it would probably be too difficult for eleven-year olds and somehow that stuck). So, I was unfamiliar with Anne Bronte and given a choice between Agnes Grey and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall I decided to put my toe in the water with Agnes Grey. A first novel, right? Shouldn’t be too difficult, OK? My thoughts, having read all through, are conflicted.

Firstly, allowing for the language and grammar of the day, this is not a difficult book at all. I read through it in three sittings and I was certainly drawn into the story. That is excellent.

Secondly, the story itself is common enough for the period when middle class women could only choose between marriage, teaching, convent and prostitution for the main part. It was a governess story and this tale is truly horrific in its early chapters. Agnes is certainly caught between a rock and a hard place. She has no power and no authority over her charges, no backing from their parents and constant vilification for being unable to control these evil little sprites in her charge. I didn’t like Miss Grey, I liked the children even less and the parents least of all. As a retired teacher, with some supply teaching experience, it made being a substitute teacher in a rough secondary school seem like a doddle. At least I never had to resort to mercy killing to prevent a wicked boy from torturing a nest of baby birds, still less be accosted by an angry mother because I did not allow her son to pull living creatures to pieces.

Thirdly, when she moved on to a more sympathetic post, she not only proved ineffectual dealing with the girls but turned into a timid mouse putting up with all their machinations and teasing. Agnes as a main character lacks any drive, she is nice enough and good to the poor, but she is put upon daily, muzzled by social norms, strait-jacketed by her position as a servant and yet, despite giving no encouragement to Edward Weston, or any denial of the two teenage sisters’ lies, she still achieves a Happy Ever After. No! No! No! It is just not believable.

I am not sorry I read this, even if the MC is so lacklustre, meek and sorry for herself throughout. For its time, it was probably much more appropriate and believable. I am looking at it through 20/21st century goggles. I realise this and take that into account in my rating. On the plus side, we really should read and treasure our classic novels, language was much richer, style more adult and storytelling was not the rude word it has become in modern times. There is a lot of social history to be gained from these Victorian novels. It enables an understanding, via first person accounts, of the gulf in society between the haves and have nots. We still have a gulf between rich and poor of course but these days people do speak up for themselves in a way that would probably have shocked poor, grey Agnes.

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