Contribution in an anthology

Appeared in: Handbook of the English Novel, 1830–1900

Editor list: Middeke, M; Pietrzak-Franger, M

Publication year: 2020

Pages: 237-252

ISBN: 978-3-11-037641-8

eISBN: 978-3-11-037671-5

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376715-013

Title of series: Handbooks of English and American Studies

Number in series: 9

Abstract: 

This chapter argues that Anne Brontë’sAgnes Grey(1847) is comparable toits eponymous heroine and to standard portrayals of its author: under the ostensiblyself-controlled, plain, and unassertive exterior linger hidden depths of anger and de-spair. This makes Agnes Grey interesting both from a psychological point of view andas a historical document giving insight into the situation of English middle-classwomen in the 1840s. The chapter demonstrates that besides engaging in topics suchas women and work, religion, education, and human-animal relationships,AgnesGreyboth unwittingly reflects and consciously condemns an oppressive class andgender ideology that curtails the scope of female agency. Relating Brontë’snoveltonineteenth-century women’s writing as analysed by Sandra M. Gilbert and SusanGubar inThe Madwoman in the Attic(1979), the chapter argues thatAgnes Greyre-works the tropes of imprisonment, a split sense of self, and a deviant double and thatit constitutes a noteworthy contribution to Victorian literary representations of femaleidentities.

Harvard Citation style: Rostek, J. (2020) Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey (1847), in Middeke, M. and Pietrzak-Franger, M. (eds.) Handbook of the English Novel, 1830–1900. De Gruyter, pp. 237-252. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376715-013

APA Citation style: Rostek, J. (2020). Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey (1847). In Middeke, M., & Pietrzak-Franger, M. (Eds.), Handbook of the English Novel, 1830–1900 (pp. 237-252). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376715-013