A Study: Lucy Snowe in “Villette”
A note on the text: I used Charlotte Bronte’s Villette as published in 2004 by Signet Classics
I love the book Jane Eyre and while Villette isn’t quite as good as that classic, it has a protagonist, Lucy Snowe, that has as much depth and subtlety as the one in Bronte’s magnus opus does. I love the way in which this book hints at Lucy’s subtilties in small, seemingly insignificant ways.
Lucy Snowe is very Puritanical in a lot of ways. She dislikes frivolity and really dislikes any excessive displays of emotion. She prizes herself on being in complete control of herself and her emotions. She having peace and tranquility in her life and tends to shy away from anything that would disturb that peace. When she reflects on her time spent in her childhood home she says that her time there went “not with tumultuous swiftness, but blandly like the gliding of a full river through the plane. . . . The charm of variety was not there, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came, I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished it had still held aloof”, and later admits that she only changes once she has been “stimulated into action” and that she has to be “goaded, driven, [and] forced” to do anything (4, 40). It makes sense therefore why she struggles to relate to people like the flirtatious and ditzy Ginevra Fanshawe. While Lucy is emotionally restrained and generally avoids doing anything to “disturb the peace”, Ginevra is an emotional firecracker who enjoys stirring up stuff wherever she goes. Yet Bronte skillfully shows at various points in the story that underneath Lucy’s stoic exterior beats a very human, emotional heart.
For the bulk of the story Lucy is an English teacher working at an all girls boarding school, run by the equally stoic Mrs. Beck, in Villette, a fictional French town, and for a while it seems like the two are a match made in Heaven. Yet, it eventually becomes evident that Lucy isn’t as happy there as she initially thought she would be. It’s not really until she meets little Georgette that she begins to realize just how lonely she is: “Her clasp and the nestling action with which she pressed her cheeks to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain. Feeling of no kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from a pure source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, [subdued] the heart, and sent a gush to the eyes” (134). However this proves to be only a “temporary lapse in judgment” at least until Dr John Graham Bretton shows up.
It’s not until Dr. John comes onto the scene where we really see Lucy wrestle with her emotions. She loves John, but something deep inside of her keeps her from fully expressing herself to him. Feelings, in her mind, lead only to disappointment and pain. She can’t get disappointed, heart broken and hurt if she doesn’t allow herself to get attached to anyone. No good can come from her telling John how much she loves him. Or at least that’s what she thinks. But there is something else, something deep inside of her, something outside of the realm of reason that dares to hope that things might be different. Reason tells her that she should keep her mouth shut and yet, for the first time, Lucy admits that she hates how
this hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope; she could not rest [until I was] altogether crushed, cowed, broken in and broken down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are all glad at times to defy her; to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination- her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible revenge that awaits our return. . . . Long I should have died of [Reason’s] ill usage. . . but for that kinder Power (257).
That’s why she has to be pushed as hard as she does to do anything: her overly critical mind has the tendency to stamp out her ability and desire to do anything with her life. I bet there are a lot of people who know what that feels like.
Happiness is something that lives somewhat outside the realm of reason. It is something that has be to experienced out there in the real world. It cannot be cultivated, worked on, or reasoned with. Happiness, as Lucy later says, “is not a potato to be planted in mold and tilled in manure” (282). You have to risk getting your heart broken in order to experience true happiness.
However the true power of Bronte’s skill as a writer comes in the way that Lucy changes throughout the course of the novel while maintaining the qualities that make her so unique. She learns how to feel, how to let love into her life, but never quite shakes the old Puritanical quality of self control. It eventually becomes evident that Dr John loves Paulina and while Lucy is happy for them, she still struggles with feelings of jealousy. So while on the surface she seems stoic and unattached, underneath there is a brewing cauldron of emotion. Look at how she describes the way that John watches Paulina with only the slightest sense of jealousy seeping through: “[John] followed with his eye the gilded glance of Paulina’s thimble as if it had been some bright moth on the wing, or the golden head of some darting yellow serpent” (329). I love how all throughout the book, Bronte shows us again and again, and in very subtle ways, that there are ore things going on inside this character than there seems to be.
Charlotte Bronte is an incredible writer who allows her characters to have incredible depth. Lucy is an incredible rich character full of depth and complexity. She is pretty unique in the way that she hints at emotions that are bubbling right underneath the surface, the ways in which she allows her character to grow and change while retaining her essential uniqueness. It’s quite a unique and beautiful gift.
