Anne Bronte's first novel was originally published as part of a three volume novel in which Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte made up the first two-thirds. As a result it received faint praise from the critics at the time, as being not so shocking as WH but having nothing like the bestseller status of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, another governess novel published shortly earlier.
I think the early critical response is justified: it is a very pale version of her sisters' works.
It is told in the first person (with a strange lurch into the third person at the end of chapter 7, when offering herself a character reference) and the past tense. At the start and the end, as if to frame the narrative, the narrator addresses the reader directly.
Specifically, Bronte tells us from the start that this is a work of instruction. She says: "all true histories contain instruction” and she hopes that her history “might prove useful to some” (Ch 1) Then, in chapter 4, she says “My design, in writing the last few pages, was not to amuse, but to benefit those who might concern ... if a parent has, therefrom, gathered any useful hint, or an unfortunate governess received their slightest benefit, I am well rewarded for my pains.” In fact, Agnes is a bit of a goody-two-shoes. She rarely refrains from preaching a moral lesson. For example, in chapter 5 there is a debate about whether "creatures were all created for our convenience" and whether that means we have the right to "torment them for our own amusement". (This is in the context of the governess killing a brood of nestlings rather than letting her young pupil torture them to death; Anne doesn't seem to extend the argument to fox-hunting.)
Later chapters have more moralising:
- “He that loveth not, knoweth not God ... He that is born of God cannot commit sin.” (Ch 11)
- “If you cannot feel positive affection for those who do not care for you, you can at least try to do to them as you would they should do unto you; you can endeavour to pity their feelings and excuse their offences.” (Ch 11)
- “It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.” (Ch 17)
There's a certain amount of similar sermonising in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and I suspect Anne was a bit too fond of pointing out where her acquaintances strayed from what she saw as the true Christian message.
Part of the problem is that Agnes suffers badly from the PLOMS, the ‘poor little old me syndrome’. She sets almost impossibly high standards of conduct for others. She is forever taking offence and then suffering in silence, only to pour our her grievances on her readers. As one of her pupils says: “Do, pray, try not to be so touchy! - there’s no speaking to you else.” (Ch 14)
I felt the plot lacked an overall structure; it was a bit memoirish (I understand it was based on Anne Bronte's real experiences). Penniless girl becomes a governess in a family where the children are spoiled rotten. She lacks any authority and finally, in an attempt to assert herself, is dismissed. She now goes to another family of spoiled brats but does a little better, having learned lessons. We're nearly half-way through before the possibility of escape appears, in the shape of a marriageable man, and now one of the spoiled brats has to jeopardise her chances. The second part actually unfolds as a plot; the first part seems to be merely introductory.
The characters are almost all one-dimensional. The rich families who employ her are almost all spoiled or selfish or tyrannical or inconsiderate. The clergyman she falls for is perfect in every way, if a little uncommunicative (he plays his cards so close to his chest that they seem to be inside his shirt). As for Agnes herself, she was meek to the point of toothlessness, long-suffering and patient and much too good to be true. Only Rosalie had anything approaching a character arc and they was straight from the stereotype and therefore as predictable as sunset.
The prose had its moments. Bronte was afraid of neither irony (“Mr Robson, the scorner of the female sex, was not above the foppery of stays.”; C 5) nor metaphor (“Then, ordering his sister to hold the reins, he mounted, and made me stand for ten minutes, watching how manfully he used his whip and spurs.”; Ch 2) nor using the pathetic fallacy. Describing the journey to her first governess appointment, the narrator says: “I looked back again: there was the village spire, and the old grey parsonage beyond it, basking in a slanting beam of sunshine - it was but a sickly ray, but the village and surrounding hills were all in some sombre shade ... I saw the sunshine departing, and I carefully avoided another glance, lest I should see it in gloomy shadow, like the rest of the landscape.” (Ch 1) She started her second job in the same way, on “a wild, tempestuous day; there was a strong north wind, with a continual storm of snow drifting on the ground and whirling through the air.” (Ch 7)
But the book does have perhaps the best last line I have ever read: “And now I think I have said sufficient.”Selected quotes:
- “Her husband was a retired tradesman, who had realized a very comfortable fortune, but could not be prevailed upon to give a greater salary than twenty-five pounds to the instructoress of his children.” (Ch 1)
- “I had never been above twenty miles from home in all the course of my twenty years sojourn on Earth.” (Ch 6) The book records that some places were beginning to be linked by railways (Ch 7). Until the railways arrived, the vast majority of weddings in England were between two people from the same parish; within a few years after the railways had arrived the vast majority of weddings in England were between two people from different parishes.
- “The human heart is like india-rubber, a little swells it, but great deal will not burst it.” (Ch 13)
- “Who ever hung his hopes upon so frail a twig?” (Ch 21)
- “Alas! how far the promise of anticipation exceeds the pleasure of possession!” (Ch 21)
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