Chapter 103: A woman must have a little income of her own and a separate room
Encouraged by the success of Cherish, the publisher hastily published Roaring Hills and Agnes Gray in December 1847, although the errors in the sample books presented by Emily and Anne remained largely uncorrected. Critics were shocked by "Roaring Heights" and ignored "Agnes Gray."
"Agnes Gray", originally titled "A Slice of a Man's Life", tells the story of Agnes Gray, a delicate girl who has been pampered since childhood, and takes the initiative to go out to work as a governess to help families in financial distress.
The gentlemen she met were outwardly personable and elegant, but in fact they were lackluster and took pleasure in insulting others, the hostess did not care about what the children wanted, but were only arrogant, and the children were completely spoiled, did not know how to respect others, and spent their days playing and abusing animals.
Agnes Gray has a hard time getting children to learn, and feels like a complete "stranger in a strange place." She controlled her emotions with great self-control, insisted on influencing her children with kindness, taught them to be kind to animals, and resisted the bad influences from her father and uncle.
Eventually, Agnes became friends with the students, and eventually married the equally kind pastor Weston.
In the history of English literature, the 1840s saw the emergence of several novels featuring governesses. Unlike other novels that observe great social and economic changes through the eyes of a governess, or where the protagonist is dissatisfied with his family and enters society, the protagonist in Agnes Gray takes the initiative to go out into society at home.
In the book, Anne focuses on the psychological changes of the heroine, in order to faithfully reflect the society's disregard and injustice for the group of female governesses. Gaining people's attention and support, as she says in her book, "If a parent gets some kind of helpful inspiration from it, or if an unfortunate governess benefits a little bit from it, my hard work is not in vain."
In contrast to Charlotte and Emily's more exaggerated narrative style, Anne's narrative style in Agnes Gray is unpretentious, natural, temperate, and even religious.
The famous Irish writer George Moore called it "one of the best prose narrative works", but Anne's realistic style and unpretentious style of writing are also one of the reasons why critics and later readers have ignored the book.
After entering 1848, the whole Brontë family fell ill, and Anne alone fell ill twice. In order to comfort the Pastor Brontë, who was suffering from a cold and had to take care of Brownwell, Anne asked Charlotte to tell her father about their literary success, to which Priest Brontë was very happy.
The last week of June 1848. Anne's novel "The Tenant at Wildfield Manor," which combines Thorpegreen's life experiences with Brandwell's depraved journey, is published. It was an immediate success, selling out within six weeks.
But the publisher, Newbe, cut many of the passages, cheated Anne out of her work, and tried to convince the public that the author of "The Tenant of Wildfield Manor" and "Cherished" was a man who was selling the book.
To set the record straight. In the summer of 1848, Lute and Anne left for London. Identify yourself to the publisher, George Smith. Years later. George Smith recalls the impression Anne made on him: "An elegant, quiet, very reserved lady, not pretty, but endearing. Her demeanor peculiarly shows the need for protection and encouragement. Always maintain a sincere look, which makes people feel sympathy."
"The Tenant of Wildfield Manor" tells the story of a mysterious lady who takes her children and servants to Wildfield Manor, which has been unoccupied for many years.
She tried to live in the depths, but she was still surrounded by gossip. Gilbert Markham, a young farmer who doesn't believe the rumors, eventually learns about her past from the diary Helen gave him.
It turned out that Helen's husband Arthur Huntington had been pampered since he was a child, and used various means to make Helen blindly fall in love with her. After getting married, Huntington continued to drink heavily, living a dissolute life with many alcoholic friends and abusing Helen who tried to persuade him to do good.
Arthur also taught his son to drink, and Helen secretly added tartaric acid to the wine to make her son completely dislike the smell of alcohol. Arthur tried to teach his son to abuse and abuse animals, and Helen, who had always been submissive, decided to run away and planned to become a painter to live independently, but Arthur learned about it and burned the painting tools.
Helen eventually ran away with her children and came to Wildfield Manor. She hopes that Gilbert will no longer pursue herself who is legally incapable of marrying. Soon Helen learned that her husband was critically ill and rushed home to try to give her dying husband some comfort, but Arthur Huntington refused.
After Arthur Huntington's death, Helen inherited the estate, and she was free to paint. Faced with Gilbert, who was still pursuing her, Helen feared that she would lose her independence after remarrying, and they eventually tied the knot.
The Tenant of Wildfield Manor is a work ahead of its time, when women like Helen Huntington were either married and left to work as governesses, while Huntington left the family and became painters and lived independently.
As Messinclair put it, "The sound of Helen Huntington slamming the bedroom door in front of her husband resounded throughout Victorian Britain."
The male characters in this book are a microcosm of the society of the time, where alcoholism, debauchery, and family abuse were commonplace, but this was the norm in the society of the time.
Anne Brontë attributed it to a defect in the education of men, and believed that society should adopt an equal approach to education for men and women.
Anne's radical views drew immediate opposition from some critics, which led to the addition of a strong preface to the second edition of The Tenant at Whitefield Manor, in which she emphasized Acton Bell's independence, saying that speculation about the author's gender was irrelevant, and that it was important to "tell the truth, for the truth always conveys its own morality to those who can accept him."
"When we have to write about sinful and immoral people, I strongly believe that it is better to describe them as they really are, rather than as they want their readers to see."
Charlotte disliked the novel, believing that "the choice of subject matter was a mistake in its entirety, and Jane couldn't imagine a subject that was more incompatible with the author's personality"
"I think that writing about simple and natural things, serene descriptions and simple touches is what Acton Bell is good at." She refused a request for a reprint of the novel, and the publisher, in order to honor Charlotte's feelings, did not publish a single edition of the novel until after her death.
George Moore praised the novel's themes and style as reminiscent of Jane Austen, but disliked the dual narrative structure of the hero's diaries quoted in his correspondence to friends.
The novel's radical theme, complex dual narrative structure, and lack of timely reprint have all limited the novel's circulation, but today's literary history has taken this work, along with "Cherish", "Dong Bei and Son", and "Vanity Fair", as a representative of the writers' questioning and criticism of society in that period.
One of the guardians of the Demon Warrior - Woolf
Virginia, Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941). She is a British female writer who is known as the pioneer of modernism and feminism in the twentieth century.
She was a central figure in London's literary scene during the interwar and a member of the Bloomsbury School. The most well-known novels include "Mrs. Deloway", "The Lighthouse Walk", "Jacob's Room", "Orlando", the essay "A Room of Her Own" and the famous quote that a woman must have a little income of her own and a separate room.
Born in London, her name before marriage was Adeline Virginia Stephen. Both parents had been widowed, so Woolf lived with her half-siblings and the family spanned three marriages.
Woolf's mother was a beautiful woman who modeled for the former Raphaelite painter Edward. Woolf's father, Sir Leslie, was a prominent editor, literary critic and biographer. (To be continued......)