Cussedness

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

West Yorkshire folk can be nasty creatures; being one, I should know. Many of the characters encountered in Anne Brontë’s first novel are unpleasant in a manner that will be recognisable to anyone who has observed the social tics peculiar to the inhabitants of the thirty or so miles around Leeds and Bradford. The children entrusted to Agnes’s tutelage are vile, and would require nothing more than mp3 ringtones and modern attire to fit in with those to be found hanging about the Kingsgate centre in Huddersfield. Her astoundingly inconsiderate employers are differentiated from their present-day counterparts only by their lack of Porsche Cayennes and mains services. The few sympathetic characters are thrown into marked relief by the effect of all this ghastliness, and the reader cannot help feeling sorry for the heroine despite her initial spinelessness and her overbearing religiosity.

When we first meet Agnes herself she is all ideals and no ability, particularly where controlling her students is concerned. It is hardly surprising that her charges run rings round her, as she makes no attempt to exert any restraint over them. We are led to believe that this is entirely down to the restrictions placed upon her by her employers, who will not let her upset her pupils in any way, but any schoolchild knows that a good teacher can usually control a class without force or anger. Agnes is simply not able to do her job properly, as would be expected for one who has received no training and has no experience. Anne Brontë is writing from personal experience when she describes Agnes’s situation in the households she is employed by, and this element of the novel probably came as something of a shock to many of her contemporary readers. It makes the book a fascinating document now that the species of governess is extinct.

Agnes Grey is not a taxing read, and it is generally well written. If the prose gets a little overwrought in places, the dialogue and characterisation are good enough to compensate, and the story is enjoyable enough to keep the reader engaged up to its conclusion. But it is the entertainingly unpleasant creations of Agnes’s employers, and their friends, acquaintances, relations and offspring, who really make the novel come alive, populating a world with types still recognisable today, largely unchanged beneath the paraphernalia of modern living.

1 comment • 2007-03-07 11:28 • Categories: Books, Reviews • Tags: Anne Brontë, Novels, Yorkshire