Charlotte Brontë’s Villette is a novel that follows the life of Lucy Snow. Brontë displays the struggles of depression and isolation in Villette through Lucy. Although Lucy struggles with depression Brontë presents a novel in which Lucy is not crippled by her depression and is able to remain an independent strong female character. This depression stems from isolation, and from lack of connections, due to people abandoning her. Brontë demonstrates the strength of Lucy as a character through Lucy making independent decisions. Lucy also shows her strength through how she learns to not fear the nun that she frequently sees. The ending of this novel also presents how Lucy is not crippled by depression, and instead remains independent and strong when she remains unmarried and runs her own school. This leaves Lucy’s ending sad yet happy, because she prevails as a strong character in spite of her depression.
Lucy Snow struggles with depression throughout the entire novel. However, a large turning point in which her depression becomes at its height is during the long vacation at Villette. Lucy describes to the reader how she felt during the long vacation, “My heart died within me; miserable longings strained its chords. How long were those September days! How silent, how lifeless! How vast and void seemed the desolate premises!” (Brontë 143). This quotation displays how terrible Lucy felt during this long vacation, and how she felt her heart had died because of it. The depression at this point stems from the isolation that she experiences because most students and teachers left Villette during the long vacation. In “Bronte’s Lunatic Ball: Constituting ‘A Very Safe Asylum’ in Villette”, Piper Murray writes, “Of course, in one way, Lucy has already shown herself to be a master of self-control before she even arrives at La Terrasse, but in another, her illness has clearly been the direct result of a severe lack of society, of anything even resembling the unambiguous gender and economic roles offered by the asylum” (Murray 10). This quotation is talking about the idea that Lucy’s depression does heavily stem from her isolation, which then is the reason that the long vacation was so hard on her emotionally.
Lucy’s depression also stems from her close relationships ending. The readers do not get much information on Lucy’s parents, but they are told that Lucy is an orphan. This is Lucy’s first major relationship ending in death. In Lucy’s furthering years she experiences more of her relationships ending which then feeds into her isolation. The large rejection that Lucy undergoes is when Graham throws her to the side and stops writing her letters because he decides to pursue Paulina instead. Graham’s action to reject Lucy is one that seems to slowly take place, where he slowly begins to not keep in contacts with her, and this is what inspired her to burry Grahams letters to her, which Lucy describes, “But I was not only going to hide a treasure—I meant also to bury a grief. That grief over which I had lately been weeping as I wrapped it in its winding—sheet, much be interred” (Brontë 277). This quotation is describing Lucy, as she is burying Grahams letters, and with those letters her grief in him abandoning her as well. In “‘A Great Break in the Common Course of Confession’: Narrating Loss in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette”, Gretchen Braun writes, “Villette’s central plot follows Lucy’s cautious advances toward and painful reverses from men who might serve as her witness and help bridge the psychic and social divide” (Braun 12). Lucy is finding relationships to not feel isolated, yet she always seems to lose them. Therefore, the loss of close relationships feeds her depression, compared to if her relationships would last, pulling her from being isolated, and ultimately from being depressed.
Although Lucy struggles with depression, she does not let that cripple her into a meek character, instead she remains strong throughout the novel. One of Lucy’s display of strength is her ability to make strong intimidating decisions for herself, for example when she moves to Villette school. This decision is huge for Lucy, mainly because she does not know French at this point, therefore is extremely out of her comfort zone. When travelling to Villette Lucy has a conversation with Ginevra Fanshawe, in which Ginevra asks Lucy where she is going, Lucy replies, “Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can find it” (Brontë 48). Lucy in this moment is going somewhat blindly into a French speaking area, simply to find a job in order to make a decent living for herself. This action shows the strength that Lucy possesses even though she does struggle emotionally.
Another example of Lucy not letting her depression handicap her and instead shows strength, is how she deals with the nun she sees. When Lucy first sees the nun while reading her letter from Graham, she is terrified and describes her feelings about the nun, “I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have swooned. It receded: I made for the door” (Brontë 229). Lucy response is complete terror the first time she sees the nun. After this first time seeing the nun, each time Lucy sees her she is less afraid. In “Illegible Minds: Charlotte Brontë’s Early Writings and the Psychology of Moral Management in Jane Eyre and Villette’”, Beth Tressler writes, “As Dr. John has advised, Lucy defies the nun, and taking her by the hand, Lucy tears her up. What enables Lucy’s dominion over the nun is what previously enabled her triumph over Dr. Jon himself—the imagination.” (Tressler 16). Tressler is addressing the scene that Lucy finds the nun laying in her bed. In this scene Lucy tears apart the nun’s apparel in order to defy the nun. This reaction to the nun is an act of strength for Lucy and is her making the decision that she will not be afraid of the nun anymore. Once again this is Brontë displaying Lucy’s strength, instead of her depression.
The choice that Brontë makes to have Lucy remain unmarried, and for Monsieur Paul to die in the end, furthered Lucy’s strength as a character in spite of her depression. This particular decision made Lucy a female character who in the end did not need a man. Although Lucy lost the love of her life, she was still fine off, and in a sense had a happy ending. Her strength is well depicted from this because instead of falling into depression after the death she moves forward. Her moving forward also shows growth in her character, because she appears to not let this lost drive her into depression as her loss of relationships had in the past. In “Charlotte Brontë’s Villette: Forgeries of Sex and Self”, Laura E. Ciolkowski writes,
Brontë reinvents popular Victorian fictions of female development by exposing the forged nature of the subject’s wholes development these narratives and endeavor to trace. She takes up the tension between the act of bringing into being and the act of counterfeiting in order to redescribe the Victorian terrain in which “authentic” women are produced, policed, and refigured. (Ciolkowski 3)
The ending of Villette further displays Lucy’s strength over depression when she runs her own school, that Monsieur Paul provided for her. In the final chapter Lucy describes the three years that Monsieur Paul is gone, “Reader, they were the three happiest years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my school; I worked — I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account” (Brontë 460). This quotation is interesting because like Lucy says, it is a paradox. Although Monsieur Paul is gone, she is extremely happy, once again displaying her strength and independence. During this time Lucy is succeeding with her school, and although the school was given to her, she is still showing extreme independence in running it by herself. At this point Lucy’s depression appears to be near gone, and it seems as though it is her strength and character that has brought this upon her. In “On the Margins of the Acceptable: Charlotte Brontë’s Villette” Marit Fimland writes, “Thus Lucy underlines the importance of her own existence, as an individual and as a woman. The ‘heretic’ narrative contains a potential for Lucy Snowe within whose framework she can find the freedom to define and interpret her own existence as an individual, and, not at least, as a woman” (Firmland 4). Fimland is addressing Lucy’s independence as a character, and how she is her own person, and makes decisions strictly based on what is good for her in the moment. Although Lucy’s independence is emphasized at the end of the novel when she is running her own school, it is strongly represented throughout the entire novel. Overall, Lucy’s strength and independence helps her overcome her depression and Brontë displays this through Lucy running her school.
Charlotte Brontë overall displays the struggles of depression through Lucy Snow, in Villette. Although Lucy struggles with depression due to isolation and abandonment, Brontë does not illustrate her as being crippled because of her depression. Instead Brontë highlights Lucy’s strengths and independence through various scene and decisions that Lucy makes throughout the novel. Brontë especially shows Lucy’s independence and strength in the end of the novel, when Lucy has a sad yet happy ending, in which Monsieur Paul dies, but she gets to run her own school. The end of the novel is also when Lucy appears to have overcome her depression, that she was fighting throughout the novel in results of her strength in character.
Work Cited
BRAUN, GRETCHEN. “‘A GREAT BREAK IN THE COMMON COURSE OF
CONFESSION’: NARRATING LOSS IN CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S
‘VILLETTE.’” ELH, vol. 78, no. 1, 2011, pp. 189–212. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/41236539.
Brontë, Charlotte. Villette. Edited by Sally Minogue. Wordsworth Classics, 1993.
CIOLKOWSKI, LAURA E. “CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S ‘VILLETTE’: FORGERIES OF SEX
AND SELF.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 26, no. 3, 1994, pp. 218–234. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/20831876.
Fimland, Marit. “ON THE MARGINS OF THE ACCEPTABLE: CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S
‘VILLETTE.’” Literature and Theology, vol. 10, no. 2, 1996, pp. 148–159. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/23925093.
Murray, Piper. “Bronte's Lunatic Ball: Constituting ‘A Very Safe Asylum’ in Villette.” Victorian
Review, vol. 26, no. 2, 2000, pp. 24–47. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/27793437.
TRESSLER, BETH. “ILLEGIBLE MINDS: CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S EARLY WRITINGS
AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL MANAGEMENT IN ‘JANE EYRE’ AND
‘VILLETTE.’” Studies in the Novel, vol. 47, no. 1, 2015, pp.119. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/43233927.
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