Number 21 July 1999

Another 'Designing Woman': The Narrative Significance of Lucy Snowe

However, this focus tends to emphasize the product, rather than the process implicit in gendered negotiations that seek to control the feminine speaker and/or her message, and this kind of interpretation overlooks other, potentially more subversive elements in Brontë's text. In The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar provide an instructive paradigm that explains the gendered negotiations that occur specifically in literature, in particular, women's writing and the political, subversive agenda that accompanies the act of "attempting the pen" (15).¹ In Villette, Brontë uses the political act of writing to participate in a dialogue with her literary protagonist where artistic aesthetics and female identity are debated and re-constructed; Lucy Snowe articulates this purpose in the above epigraph where she defines her relationship to art. 

Literary aesthetics are closely connected to the more visual or theatrical aesthetic codes in Villette, which link together the ideas of acting, disguise, and self-expression. Although many critics have discussed the technique of doubling that occurs among the characterizations of Lucy, Cleopatra, and Vashti, little attention seems to have been paid to the fact that as part of this triad, Lucy actually represents the literary equivalent of her compatriots in the visual and theatrical arts. Operating as a type of "inside agent," Lucy Snowe works in tandem with, and sometimes against, the Cleopatra and Vashti characterizations, as well as what could be considered male-determined literary aesthetics. Lucy, the literary complement to Cleopatra and Vashti, not only functions as a device to extend the metaphor of the artistically-determined female, but through her role as narrator, she also exists as a subversive "creator" within the art of writing. 

Brontë develops the Cleopatra and Vashti characters to help visually anchor the problematic relationship between the feminine and the aesthetic of the feminine in Villette. These two icons of manipulated, female, physical beauty represent varying degrees of the foreign, exotic, and transgressive characteristics of the fallen or marginalized woman: specifically, how they have been interpreted in painting and theatre. More importantly, their literary existences in the biblical Book of Esther, and Shakespeare and Dryden's respective plays "Antony and Cleopatra" and "All for Love," connect them with the literary character of Lucy, whose performance in the vaudeville play similarly circles back to link her identity with theirs. Lucy essentially reclaims her two "mythological" sisters when she includes them as important figures within her own narrative, and in so doing, she revisits various biblical and classical standards and texts that have traditionally muted or distorted female presence and experience. That Lucy is a female literary character created by a woman writing as a man further enhances the subversively powerful medium of writing in this novel. In considering Lucy Snowe as the third "designing woman" in this subversive category of female, Brontë's protagonist deserves full credit for her narrative presence and role within the text. 

The third "sister" to Cleopatra and Vashti, Lucy works against the traditional literary plotlines and character types available to the ideal female literary character. A product of the androgynous Currer Bell/Charlotte Brontë entity, Lucy Snowe subverts and reshapes biblical and classical images and narratives, using them to reflect an unarticulated female reality. This structurally re-examines the aesthetic ideal of the feminine in fiction, possibly extending to include the relationship between author and fictional character, and author and critic. Brontë's identity as a mid-nineteenth century woman writer places her in a highly politicized expressive space in which she would have had the unique opportunity to re-negotiate the authority of the (woman) writer, and the literary ideal of the feminine. In Lucy, Brontë creates a subversive female protagonist who works from within and among plotlines and images which have traditionally manipulated and supressed female literary characters. Before considering the ways in which Lucy narratively challenges some of these plotlines, specifically those which have suppressed Vashti and Cleopatra, it is useful to examine the ways in which she asserts her authority as narrator to accomplish this.²

Lucy's identity as teacher, an image that implies an intellectual control over texts, promotes her as a fully qualified analyst, critic, and instructor of texts. As an English teacher, Lucy occupies a powerful position within the setting of the pensionnat, overriding the symbol of male authority represented by M. Paul whose weak English language skills "obliged [him] to leave that branch of education in the English teacher's hands; which he did, not without a flash of naïve jealousy" (190). A notable exception among her colleagues (male and female alike), Lucy is the only teacher permitted to administer the final examinations in her discipline, all examinations being usually conducted by M. Paul. Although this arrangement in one sense endorses male authority over learning (M. Paul decides who will conduct the exams), it simultaneously recognizes a valid, or even necessary, female intellectual authority. These intellectual qualifications enable Lucy to creditably identify the discrepancy between the literary ideal of the feminine, and the contradictory reality she sees in her unruly female students. Reflecting back upon her first days of teaching, Lucy recalls, "I shall never forget that first lesson, nor all the undercurrent of life and character it opened up for me. Then first did I begin rightly to see the wide difference that lies between the novelist's and the poet's ideal 'jeune fille,' and the said 'jeune fille' as she really is" (97). Lucy describes her classroom of jeune filles as a battleground in which popularity, tact, and wit ensure victory over a "campaign ... of titterings and whisperings" (98). The literary ideal is presumably more docile and silent. It is interesting to note that the "undercurrent of life and character" Lucy observes, belongs to a group of foreign, female students, which adds another dimension to the ideal and the subversive character of the jeune fille. Lucy's exposé of the female ideal develops her as a perceptive character within Villette, and indicates her possible interest in, or sensitivity to, subsequent renditions of female literary characters. Following the classroom revelation, Lucy ironically shifts her scrutiny to consider her own position within the text, noting: "[my] time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment ... I felt I was getting on; not lying the stagnant prey of mould and rust, but polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen edge with constant use" (100). Lucy's admission promotes the value of "studying closely myself," an equivocal word puzzle that emphasizes both the importance of educating the female, and of studying the female literary character. In Villette, Brontë essentially constructs a tightly compressed intellectual challenge, a jack-in-the-box of sorts, that springs open once Lucy Snowe is set in motion within the narrative. The challenge, as Patricia Johnson suggests, is to recognize and appreciate the significance of what she calls Lucy's "heretic narrative." Johnson defines the heretic narrative as a story that explores the ability of the individual to make choices, and the ways in which the female protagonist articulates these choices (618). Johnson discusses the choices available to Lucy (and more generally, women) within traditional narratives, noting that they tend to present polarized options. In Villette, these options include the categories of: Romantic/Victorian, private sphere/public life, and love/work (620). Lucy's apparent failure to make clear or complete choices, for example to choose marriage over a career, or vice-versa, should not be considered a character flaw or a structural weakness in the text, but rather "a necessary strategy on Lucy's part, a refusal to be placed, to be absorbed into any system" (Johnson 622). Another aspect of the heretic narrative identified by Johnson includes Lucy's letter-writing practices. In the chapter "Vashti," for example, Lucy writes two very different letters to Dr. John, "one for [her] own relief, the other for Graham's perusal" (Brontë 317).³ Here, Lucy straddles both private and public spheres, and demonstrates that a single identity can and does include contradiction; although they are quite different, both letters reveal Lucy's true identity. 

Lucy's relationship with text moves her into performance art as she learns her lines for the vaudeville performance. The evolution of Lucy-as-actor encapsulates several gendered struggles with text. Initially coerced by M. Paul into performing in the play, and then locked in an attic where she must rehearse her lines, Lucy's experience emphasizes the controlling and repressive aspects of male-authored texts and direction. However, as this episode progresses, Lucy gains control over the interpretation and final performance of her role. She alters the masculine costume she is to wear for her part, and modifies the role to reflect her own emotions, inspired by what she refers to as the "language in Dr. John's look, though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me; I drew out of it a history; I put my idea into the part I performed; I threw it into my wooing of Ginevra" (173-74). Lucy's comments focus on language, the notion of creating a history, and the desire to seduce and "capture" the feminine. That M. Paul condones Lucy's adaptation of her costume and role complicates his presence and function in the narrative; although he clearly does not belong to the English/male/oppressor⁴ category, his gender prevents him from being part of the opposite category of the French (foreign)/female/subject. This is another example of the ambiguous nature of Brontë's heretic narrative, especially as it involves an examination of identity and the individual's ability to make choices. 

Lucy's rejection of future acting engagements foreshadows the role she later plays in reconstructing Vashti and Cleopatra. Acting does not fulfill Lucy's desire for control and voice within her story, as she seems more interested in revisiting and rewriting the text, rather than working with the end product of the role. In characteristic fashion, Lucy speaks elusively about her decision to ultimately reject acting, that although: 

A keen relish for dramatic expression had revealed itself as part of my nature; to cherish and exercise this new-found faculty might gift me with a world of delight, but it would not do for a mere looker-on at life: the strength and longing must be put by; and I put them by, and fastened them in with the lock of a resolution which neither Time nor Temptation has since picked. (174) 

Brontë also equips her main protagonist with a second language, ironically challenging G.H. Lewes' scathing criticisms of Shirley, where he vilifies Brontë's use of what he deems "vulgar" Yorkshire accents and "a most inappropriate obtrusion of French phrases ... A French word or two may be introduced now and then on account of some peculiar fitness, but Currer Bell's use of the language is little better than that of the 'fashionable' novelists" (Alcott 165). In Villette, Brontë outrageously disregards Lewes' professional advice, and includes extensive segments of French dialogue into her narrative. Because several of these sections involve exchanges between Lucy and M. Paul, the French language acquires a distinctive, sexual dimension, becoming even more subversive and threatening than Lewes' original criticism, which merely disregards French as a trendy narrative device used by "popular" writers. The English characters in Villette refer to Lucy in sexually benign terms, while the French characters tend to define her in rather erotic terms, or at the very least, demonstrate some respect for who she is. Lucy summarizes these varied opinions in a particularly insightful passage: 

Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model teacher, the essence of the discreet: somewhat conventional perhaps, too strict, limited and scrupulous ... whilst another person, Professor Paul Emanuel ... never lost an opportunity of intimating his opinion that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature - adventurous, indocile, and audacious. (375-76) 

Lucy Snowe experiments in many different ways with narrative devices, all of which illustrate the subversive power of writing, and the possibilities of revising existing texts. Although she has often been discredited for her elusive identity in the text, in particular her withholding of information from her readers, we need to acknowledge that she skilfully uses these strategies to construct a more complex style of (heretic) narrative that reveals the limitations and possibilities of texts and the process of writing texts. 

Brontë writes the Vashti episode in an attempt to defend the woman artist. The rhetoric surrounding the Vashti's performance reflects the problematic perceptions of the woman artist, which are closely connected to the biographical struggles of Brontë as a writing woman artist. In Villette, Brontë debates this issue by casting it as a type of visual metaphor that vividly encapsulates and clarifies the passion and struggle inherent in this political role. Essentially, she is responding to Lewes' critical attack on her novel Shirley⁶ when she puts the Vashti on stage. Dr. John's impression of the actress is reminiscent of Lewes' most wounding criticism. Lucy reports: "he judged her as a woman, not an artist ... a branding judgement" (325).⁷ Within the literary forum of her novel, Brontë subversively debates the perception of the woman artist in ways she probably could not were she to address this issue in a more direct, critical manner. In assessing Vashti's performance, for example, Lucy articulates two conflicting perceptions of the woman artist. She methodically reports that "For a while -- a long while -- I thought it was only a woman, though a unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-and-by I recognized my mistake ... it was a mighty revelation" (321-22). When read alongside Lewes (or "Dr. John"), Lucy's observation effectively undermines his disregard of the woman artist because he fails to experience a similar "revelation." Lewes and Dr. John do not consider women to be valid commentators about the feminine, and so these two men remain ignorant members of the audience; this is best illustrated by Dr. John's eventual choice of bride in the character-less, but aesthetically ideal Paulina Home. In addition, Lucy's gender implicitly emphasizes the intellectual error in misjudging Vashti; Brontë seems to suggest here that only the intellectually weak would make such an error. That Brontë responds to Lewes' attack on her artistry through an extremely adept use of this artistry clearly demonstrates the power of this medium, and the skilful (albeit subversively so) ways in which Brontë functions as a woman artist. Lucy's reference to the performance as a "mighty revelation" also calls into question the authority of the Bible, offering either a different way to consider overlooked female figures, or to at least consider alternate sources of knowledge provided by revelation. Brontë contrasts Lucy's source of revelation in art with M. Paul's traditional source of revelation within the bible, illustrated when he worriedly asks her: "do you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation?" (524). This shows the gendered differences of perception in the narrative, and Lucy's ability to make choices that do not adhere to the status quo. 

Lewes' and Dr. John's shared opinion of the woman artist extends beyond a simple disregard for her. Brontë not only depicts Dr. John's indifference to Vashti, but also his alarming power over identifying her. Lucy gains access to the visual and theatrical arts only through the guidance of Dr. John, whom Brontë depicts as a "key" to Villette, possessed of "a knowledge not merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its galleries, salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object worth seeing, of every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or science, he seemed to possess the 'Open Sesame'" (248). The implication in this passage is grim: art resides under male control, and women cannot gain entry into this world without the proper guide. Brontë develops the artistic world as a type of secret society complete with its own secret password. 

In recognizing Vashti as an artist working within the confines of a textually repressed role, Brontë revisits the source of Vashti's struggle. The biblical story of Vasthi depicts wifely disobedience as not simply an insult to her husband (a king), but perhaps more importantly, a social transgression which is then assessed by a community of "wise men ... who knew the laws, and judgments of their forefathers" (Esther 1:1). Faced with an impossible decision (to either compromise her femininity or her obedience to her husband), Vasthi's decision not to parade her beauty in front of King Ahasuerus' guests costs her a crown and a husband; the wise men decree that she be replaced with "another that is better than she" (Esther 1:1). 

Brontë's Vashti does not submit quietly to the fate of the biblical queen. Casting Villette as a pseudo-morality play, Brontë peoples her novel with a variety of allegorical figures who illustrate the struggles and challenges which confront her fictitious Everywoman, the orphaned Lucy Snowe. Vashti (the performer) transforms these abstractions into concrete characters and concepts so that she can quantify and conquer them. Unlike the biblical Vashti, Brontë's actress takes full control over her situation: "[t]o her, what hurts becomes immediately embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried down, torn into shreds" (322). Lucy observes specific abstractions the onstage Vashti successfully struggles with, ironically the same intangible (and male-defined) conditions that bring about the fall of the biblical Vashti. The actress, "[s]carcely a substance herself ... grapples to conflict with abstractions ... her strength has conquered Beauty, [and] has overcome Grace" (322-23). Lucy later engages in a similar exercise when she is examined by two professors who have challenged M. Paul's academic integrity. Required to write an essay on the topic of human justice, a "[b]lank, cold abstraction, unsuggestive to me of inspiring idea" (503), it is only after Lucy recognizes these professors as the same men who frightened her upon her arrival in Villette ⁸ that she finds the inspiration for her paper. Like Vashti, Lucy's inspiration involves a threat to her physical security. This transforms the abstraction into a noisy and feminized intruder, who Lucy says "rushed before me in novel guise, a red, random beldame with arms akimbo" (504). Robert Heilman provides a useful analysis of Lucy's relationship with personified abstractions, noting that they tend to appear during moments of "heightened emotions" (225), alluding to dangerous or destructive elements typically related to a female dilemma, that although "the abstractions are not solidly personified, they are not wholly pallid either; they assist in a generally well-imaged account of a suicidal state" (25). ⁹ Heilman's concept of a suicidal state increases the tension in the themes and politics of Brontë's narrative. Surrounded by numerous challenges (abstractions), and diagnosed with a nervous condition, Lucy Snowe functions within an unstable and potentially self-destructive psychological space. The personification of abstractions also becomes an influential polyphonic discourse in this text. On more than one occasion, Lucy converses with, and is counselled by, Common-sense (56), Providence and Fate (79), Imagination and Memory (207), and Reason (287), to name just a few. In making these otherwise intangible concepts an interactive part of Lucy's life story, Brontë shows how influential these concepts are, and perhaps by engaging them in a dialogue with Lucy, she also demonstrates that they can be negotiated with. 

Negotiation exists on several levels in Brontë's narrative. In struggling with abstractions, Lucy and the actress Vashti attempt to overthrow ideals and standards that have enforced the patriarchal status quo. Lucy takes this one step further when she successfully endeavours to choose or control the religious texts she will either read or listen to. This reflects the Protestant versus Roman Catholic theme in the novel, and Lucy's choice to remain Protestant, despite the persistent efforts of Père Silas and M. Paul to undertake the "heretic Englishwoman's spiritual direction" (526). Rather than endure the nightly "'lecture pieuse ... mainly designed as a wholesome mortification of the Intellect, [and] a useful humiliation of the Reason" (143), Lucy programmes her exit "the moment that guilty old book was brought out" (144). This is perhaps one of the most significant passages in Villette because it establishes several key images that occur elsewhere in the novel in slightly altered forms to illustrate the problem of female literary types within male literary aesthetics. First, Lucy's criticism of the readings as "legends of the saints ... no more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed inwardly; there were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft of the book was far worse than its monkery" (143), questions the intrinsic value of books, or at least the authorship or the moral lessons to be learned from books. Second, it is after Lucy rejects these readings in favour of "thinking ... my own thoughts, living my own life in my own still shadow-world" (144) that she discovers Mme. Beck's nocturnal pillagings through her belongings (145), and from this learns the real substance of Mme. Beck's character, something she possibly would not know if she chose to sit through the evening readings. In a metaphorical sense, the legends mask the subversive existence of female behaviour. Furthermore, this subversive behaviour represents a curiosity to discover the female; Mme. Beck is involved in her unscrupulous investigations because she wants to learn about the "real" Lucy Snowe. Being female, Mme. Beck demonstrates, does not necessarily involve passive or respectful behaviours, especially where texts (the personal letters Lucy receives) are concerned. Finally, Lucy reacts to the religious texts in a strangely humorous but ominous physical manner. She informs us that "I sat out this 'lecture pieuse' for some nights as well as I could, and as quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors by involuntarily sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board of the table before me" (143-44). This passage seems dangerously out of place in a narrative where, as has already been mentioned, the gendered struggle for power occurs largely in an artistic or psychological space. That Lucy moves this struggle into a physical arena adds a distinctly cynical underside to Brontë's themes of identity and choice, especially if we connect this reflex with a concern for the physical security of the self. 

The relationship between Lucy and the actress Vashti explores the limitations and expressive possibilities in dramatic performance. When interpreted and controlled by women, role-playing acquires the power to redefine female identity. Brontë casts this as an imaginative process that quantifies the threats to female autonomy in such a way that they can be contained and controlled within a female-oriented text and experience. 

Brontë's Cleopatra painting depicts a voluptuous Egyptian queen who does not technically belong to a classical tradition, although several features of this characterization do link her to classical motifs or themes. Evidence suggests that the source of Brontë's Cleopatra is not a painting of the queen of Egypt herself, but rather one of an Egyptian dancing girl. Jill Matus credits Edouard De Biefve's "Une Almé"¹⁰ as the source of Brontë's Cleopatra, which Brontë probably saw at the Brussels Salon in 1842 (346). Matus documents the differences between the two "Cleopatras," most importantly, that although De Biefve's painting "caused quite a stir" (354) because viewers found the theme too sensual, Brontë's modified version is even more sexually immoderate. Matus specifies the alterations, that Brontë "magnifies and intensifies the figure's posture, dress, and surroundings ... [and] explains and intensifies De Biefve by casting her odalisque as a Cleopatra, returning to earlier associations of exotic sexuality with the East" (354-55). Matus also notes the voluptuous connection between Brontë's Cleopatra and Shakespeare's's queen of Egypt in his play "Anthony and Cleopatra" (355), in which he depicts her "I'th'posture of a whore" (V.ii.220).¹¹ In modifying De Biefve's dancing girl, Brontë creates the dramatic (textual) connection between the frozen image of Cleopatra, and her not particularly complimentary appearance in Shakespeare. Matus further suggests that by casting the painting in the voluptuous likeness of Shakespeare's Cleopatra, Brontë can, vis-a-vis Lucy, articulate a "withering account of the ... aesthetic traditions and contemporary fashions of representing the eroticized female subject" (50). This challenges the aesthetics governing painting, and cleverly translates into a similar indictment of the aesthetics governing the literary representation of women. Although Brontë was considerably interested in the aesthetics of painting,¹² she includes little direct debate about this issue in the novel, choosing instead to move this discussion into a literary forum. In describing the painted Cleopatra within the text of her own narrative, Lucy offers her version of Cleopatra as a potential comparison or alternate to the Cleopatras of Shakespeare or Dryden fame. We should also consider the larger context of the revisitation of feminine icons, in particular, Anna Jameson's 1889 study of the female roles in Shakepeare's plays. Her revolutionary book Shakspeare's Heroines was the first of its kind to acknowledge the value of a female-authored critique of Shakespeare, and an in-depth treatment of the female roles of Shakespeare's women.¹³ In affiliating her Cleopatra with Shakespeare's well-known drama, and consequently with critical discussions of his work, Lucy contributes to the intellectual debate surrounding the presentation and perceptions of this female character. 

Bronte's choice of Cleopatra permits Lucy to express an obvious disdain of the excess, indecency, and general untidiness of the scene: 

She lay half-reclined on a couch: why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been standing, or at least sitting bold upright. She had no business to lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of abundance of material ... she managed to make inefficient raiment (250). 

In associating the sensuality of the foreign queen with sensible, ordinary English words and images, Lucy may once again be identifying the existence of a female sexuality in what appears to be innocuous English text. This is admittedly a complicated reading of this image. However, due to the ability of the heretic narrative to accommodate contradictions, it does seem plausible that Lucy could simultaneously critique an image of female sensuality, as well as support it. 

In Villette, classical images are mainly associated with the male characters in the novel. Lucy favourably describes Dr. John in terms of Grecian form, digressing only to take note of his wandering eye: "perhaps his eye glanced from face to face rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often, but it had a most pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his chin was full, cleft, Grecian, and perfect" (117). Thematically, this effectively combines the masculine, the classical, and the visually impaired, since Dr. John may look often, but rarely sees what is really there. This is most obvious in his ill-fated attachment to Ginevra,¹⁴ and his failure to recognize Lucy Snowe as a sexual creature.¹⁵

Lucy also connects M. Paul with classical imagery, in particular, language and texts. Lucy depicts this as an association that excludes and taunts the feminine: 

Sometimes [M. Paul] placed Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages, and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones fell very musically from his lips -- for he had a good voice -- remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye (444). 

When Brontë combines classical imagery with Lucy Snowe, it reveals the more subversive aspects of her character, which again reinforces the power of these images. When Lucy unbraids her elaborate "Grecian plaits" (161) to prepare for the vaudeville, and the actress Vashti chooses to wear her hair "flung loose in revel or war" (323), both women flount the repressive, masculine presence in the narrative, especially its attempts to quell female sexual energies. Hair, a highly charged symbol of female sexuality,¹⁷ appears in various conditions of disarray in this novel. Other classical images associated with Lucy include her nicknames: Timon and Diogenes. These identities recognize the unfeminine (or influential) traits in Lucy, an important detail that aligns her with misanthropic and philosophic (read: unfeminine) tendencies. 

The classical imagery in Villette reflects back on various traditions that have presented and documented the female. In moving her discussion of art into a literary forum, Lucy is able to control and broaden her discussion of classical imagery to show how it has been reinforced through time, and through various other arts. 

Villette is arguably one of the most radical and insightful books on the issues surrounding the aesthetics of female voice, character, and the woman writer. Lucy Snowe is not a particularly likeable character; she is elusive and unreliable as a narrator, and her readers often succumb to a confused (often exasperated) "Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether" (533). This query momentarily distracts several characters in the novel from time to time, who in the end, never seem to gain a satisfactory knowledge of Lucy. That they do not pursue their apparent curiosity about Lucy's identity is a telling detail about the ways in which the woman artist has traditionally been disregarded by mainstream opinion. This lack of interest, of course, assumes that the woman artist either has nothing to say, or lacks an authoritative voice and the means to say it. However, as Lucy Snowe, Brontë's "designing woman" shows us, this dangerously overlooks the adaptable and creative energies of women who have endured all manner of manipulation, persecution, and suppression throughout the arts and throughout the ages. Lucy Snowe reclaims more than just the Vashti and Cleopatra characterizations when she revisits and revises the art and the texts that have misrepresented them for centuries. In actively working within the text, she reclaims a space for the female voice. 

Alexander, Christine. "'The Burning Clime': Charlotte Brontë and John Martin." Nineteenth-Century Literature 50:3 (December 1995): 285-321. 

Altick, Richard D. Victorian People and Ideas. London: Norton, 1973. 

Auerbach, Nina. Romantic Imprisonment: Women and Other Glorified Outcasts. New York: Columbia UP, 1986. 

Brontë, Charlotte. Villette. Eds. Margaret Smith and Herbert Rosengarten. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 

Brownmiller, Susan. Femininity. New York: Ballantine, 1984. 

Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Ed. Alan Shelston. London: Penguin, 1975. 

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. 

Heilman, Robert B. "Tulip-Hood, Streaks, and Other Strange Bedfellows: Style in Villette." Studies in the Novel 14:3 (Fall 1982): 248-265. 

Jameson, Anna. Shakspeare's Heroines: Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical. New York: AMS Press, 1967. 

Johnson, Patricia E. "'This Heretic Narrative': The Strategy of the Split Narrative in Charlotte Brontë's Villette." Studies in English Literature 30:4 (1990): 617-631. 

Lewes, G.H. "Currer Bell's 'Shirley.'"The Brontës: The Critical Heritage. Ed. Miriam Allott. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1974. 

Matus, Jill L. "Looking at Cleopatra: The Expression and Exhibition of Desire in Villette." Victorian Literature and Culture 21 (1993): 345-367. 

McCracken Fletcher, LuAnn. "Manufactured Marvels, Heretic Narratives, and the Process of Interpretation in Villette." Studies in English Literature 32:4 (Autumn 1992): 723-746. 

Russell, Anne E. "'History and Real Life': Anna Jameson, Shakspeare's Heroines and Victorian Women." Victorian Review 17.2 (Winter 1991): 35-49. 

Wise, James and John Alexander Symington, eds. The Brontës: Their Lives, Friendships & Correspondence. Vols. III & IV. Philadelphia: Porcupine, 1980. 

Works Consulted:

Boardman, John, Jasper Green and Oswyn Murray, eds. The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford: New York: Oxford UP, 1986. 

Jacobus, Mary. Reading Woman: Essays in Feminist Criticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1986. 

Vicinus, Martha. "Women and the Theatre: Economics, Myth, and Metaphor." Victorian Literature and Culture 20 (1992): 337-347. 

1. Refer to Gilbert and Gubar's chapter "The Queen's Looking Glass" for a more detailed analysis of the Freudian interpretations of the relationship between male writers and the phallocentric pen.

2. I am taking certain liberties in moving so fluidly between the narrative authority of Lucy and that of Charlotte Brontë, simply because I am looking at subversive narration as the combined effort of author and character, and not specifically the relationship between the two.

3. Patricia Johnson brought my attention to this example. Refer to page 617 in her essay "'This Heretic Narrative': The Strategy of the Split Narrative in Charlotte Brontë's Villette" for a discussion of these two letters.

4. Shortly after her arrival in Villette, Lucy refers to the "Fatherland accents" (76) of an English gentleman (Dr. John) who helps her with her luggage.

5. See Nina Auerbach's discussion of the actress and her association with the prostitute figure. in her book Romantic Imprisonment: Women and Other Glorified Outcasts.

6. In his critique of Shirley, Lewes wrote that: "It is true, no doubt, that none of them [women] have yet attainted to the highest eminence in the highest departments of intellect. They have had no Shakespeare, no Bacon, no Newton, no Milton, no Raphael, no Mozart, no Watt, no Burke" (160). Lewes then analyses the "domain" of literature and the inroads women have made there, asking us to "Compare Miss Austen, Miss Ferriar, and Miss Edgeworth, with the lusty mirth and riotous humour of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Butler, Swift, Fielding, Smollett, or Dickens and Thackeray. It is like comparing a quiet smile with the 'inextinguishable laughter' of the Homeric gods! So also on the stage, -- there have been comic actresses of incomparable merit, lively, pleasant, humourous women ... but they have no comic energy" (162).

7. This segment of dialogue mirrors Brontë's angry and hurt reaction to Lewes' review of Shirley. In a letter to Lewes, she writes: "I will tell you why I was so hurt by that review in the 'Edinburgh' - not because its criticism was keen or its blame sometimes severe; not because its praise was stinted ... but because I had said earnestly that I wished critics would judge me as an author, not as a woman, [and] you so roughly - I even thought so cruelly - handled the question of sex" (Wise 68).

8. The original meeting occurs on page 78, but Lucy makes the connection during the exam: "Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and whisker -- those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous visages -- were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full gas-light from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me to death on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt morally certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless foreigner beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless over a whole quarter of the town" (504).

9. Robert Heilman actually counts the number of times Brontë personifies an abstraction in Villette. He reports "some seventy common nouns are made proper by type, and there are 130 instances of this. The words promoted three or four times are Reason, Fate, Hope, Imagination, Destiny, Disappointment, Death, and Truth; the two-time words are Providence, Common Sense, Time, Life, Feeling, Power, Freedom, Renovation, and Fancy. The long list of once-onlys includes the Real, Temptation, Inclination, True Love, Substance, Hypochondria, Fact, Pity, Comparison, Rumour, Hate, Conception, Falsehood, Heresy, and Creative Impulse" (246). Heilman's article is an interesting and detailed read and provides many insights into the diverse stylistic aspects of Villette. He refers to Lucy's use of puns (224), eighteenth-century syntax (225), and various other, quite complicated uses of alliteration and literary devices (235-242). I have not encountered any other critical essay that analyses Villette textually in such a unique and detailed manner; this is a must-read for anyone studying the narrative devices in Brontë's novel.

10. Jill Matus discusses the discrepancy between the Cleopatra in Villette, and the painting Brontë likely used as her prototype. Matus' essay includes some insightful details about Brontë's adaptation of De Biefve's painting, and she also includes photographs of the paintings in question. That Brontë alters the painting of an Egyptian slave girl may not only represent an artistic license, but it also makes a statement about the distortion that occurs when "real" women are depicted through art.

11. Jill Matus provided the connection to this line from Shakespeare. She also analyses the presence of several deadly sins in Brontë's Cleopatra painting, specifically, sloth, lust, and gluttony. These are the key points of contention in Lucy's criticisms of the painting (see her description on page 250).

12. Refer to Jill Matus' discussion of the relationship between Charlotte Brontë and John Martin. Also refer to Christine Alexander's article "'The Burning Clime:" Charlotte Brontë and John Martin." Alexander argues that the marginalized, nineteenth-century painter John Martin taught Brontë how to articulate passion or rebellion through a visual or a visually-oriented medium (320), and that the Academy's rejection of Martin may have influenced Brontë to moderate the passion in her writing. By shifting the focus from visual to textual, Brontë may have been attempting to modify, encode, or subvert some of the more rebellious or unacceptable themes in her writing.

13. See Anne Russell's "'History and Real Life': Anna Jameson, Shakspeare's Heroines and Victorian Women." for an assessment of Jameson's critical work. Jameson constructs a concept of womanliness that Russell refers to as "an innate and natural quality, which is by definition moral" (38), an extremely versatile definition that accommodates various interpretations of moral behaviour. Russell says that Jameson's book was extremely popular and clearly demonstrated the Victorian interest in examining and re-thinking the "textual" woman: who she was, what she represented, and possibly how she came to be there.

14. Dr. John blindly praises Ginevra in the earlier sections of the novel, specifically in "The Fête," and "We Quarrel," although she confides to Lucy that she finds him "bourgeois" (183), and a "plague" and a "bore" (184). It is not until Ginevra snubs his mother and himself at the concert that he realizes his mistake (272).

15. Dr. John "laughs till he shook" (396) when he overhears M. Paul's assessment of Lucy's wanton character (396). On two other occasions, the men provide similar, opposing views of Lucy's sensuality. At the museum, Dr. John seems unconcerned that Lucy's moral fibre might be compromised if she looks at the Cleopatra painting, whereas M. Paul lapses into one of his many diatribes against Lucy's "'Astounding, insular audacity!'" (251) Finally, the pink dress Lucy wears to the concert elicits similar responses: Dr. John dismisses her uncharacteristically colourful appearance with "a kind smile and satisfied nod" (260), while M. Paul lectures her on the intemperance of her "scarlet gown" (418). 

16. In his book Victorian People and Ideas Richard Altick provides a concise overview of a middle-class education for Victorian boys, which involved extensive "[t]ranslating, parsing, imitating, and memorizing the works of Greek and Latin authors" (252). Also see pages 54-55 for his comments on the education of girls, which was conversely "limited to the polite accomplishments which were calculated to help her first to win a husband and then, after that primary goal was reached, to infuse her household with an air of the softer graces so as to maintain its separation from the gritty world of affairs" (54). 

17. In the chapter titled "Hair" in her book Femininity, Susan Brownmiller presents the historical context behind the sexualization of women's hair. Regarding the dangerous, sexual threat of a woman's hair, Brownmiller writes that "[a] woman's act of unpinning and letting down a cascade of long hair is interpreted as a highly erotic gesture, a release of inhibiting restraints, a sign of sexual readiness which may be an enticement or a snare, a frightening danger or, in some cases, a possible salvation" (60). On the same page, Brownmiller notes the relationship between Eve's hair and temptation in Milton's "Paradise Lost," and she makes note of the significance of hair in the fairy-tale Rapunzel.

Return to Table of Contents