A review by brughiera
Villette by Charlotte Brontë

4.0

Lucy Snowe, the protagonist, is an unprepossessing character and it is to the credit of Charlotte Bronte that we remain absorbed in her rather dull life throughout the novel. Alone in the world, the most daring move taken by Lucy is to go overseas to Villette where she finds work first as a children’s nursemaid and then as a teacher of English at the school of the redoubtable Madame Beck. Her observations on the other characters bring them vividly to life, from the selfish and vain Ginevra Fanshaw to the upright Dr. John and the initially devilish Monsieur Paul Emmanuel. It is especially interesting to see how Lucy’s views of the two men change in the course of the novel as they, themselves, develop. Even when her feelings for the handsome Dr. John are at their strongest she remains aware of how it does not even occur to him that those feelings exist and never lets him suspect. Her reservations, both with respect to him and in other respects are frustrating to a modern reader. She knows Madame Beck is exploiting her by paying her much less than a previous (male) English teacher, but does nothing about it. When Monsieur Paul doesn’t come to say goodbye to her when he is leaving for Guadeloupe, she doesn’t seek him out but just waits.

But this was the nineteenth century when it was already exceptional for a young woman to be supporting herself. In her circumstances, she was in no position to put herself forward. Her strength of character is actually revealed in her submission and also in her strong attachment to her Protestant faith. We understand what she goes through, her sufferings and, eventually, her triumphs.