\u201cOne wonders whether James intends to put us in mind of Jane Austen and the\u00a0Bront\u00eb sisters by using this formulation?\u201d (Adrian Dover)<\/p>\n
The Bront\u00eb sisters had no connection to Hampshire whatsoever, and this\u00a0note seems to suggest the editor\u2019s identification of the governess as Agnes\u00a0Grey ; alter ego of Anne Bront\u00eb (1820 – 1849), whose recollections may have\u00a0provided the narrator with her initial misgivings to accept the vacant job.\u00a0Agnes Grey indeed is a likely mold for the heroine as the private tutor who\u00a0handles her little charges with professional ease. This governess, however, is\u00a0clearly composed from a number of Austen creations :<\/p>\n
Being the youngest of several daughters, she could be Lydia Bennet from\u00a0Pride & Prejudice<\/i>. Her age of twenty, however, and her eye-catching power of\u00a0observation are second Bennet daughter Elizabeth\u2019s. A protagonist who prides\u00a0herself for her accuracy in judging other people\u2019s character and intentions at\u00a0the instant. In the James version she had had brothers too, which adds another\u00a0novel to the heroine\u2019s recipe, in which she has a brother, without causing any\u00a0inconsistency with her apparent \u2018sisters only\u2019 background.<\/p>\n
This second novel sufficiently defines the father of these young ladies as\u00a0the \u2018poor country parson\u2019 from Douglas\u2019s introduction. And Jane Austen\u00a0describes the daughter of that shepherd of souls in a way that suggests her to\u00a0have lied to her employer about her qualifications as a governess. Because the\u00a0problems she has to face at Bly are somewhat out of her depths, her\u00a0hubris<\/i>\u00a0is\u00a0connected to these qualifications anyway. And the resulting tragedy has\u00a0certainly learned her the lesson of being honest to herself : the heroine never\u00a0lies.<\/p>\n
The employer, a handsome bachelor \u201cin the prime of life\u201d (a standard\u00a0eufemism), is not to be fooled that easily when it comes to assessing\u00a0applicants for a job, and he certainly knows a girl\u2019s real age (in the Austen\u00a0novel seventeen rather than twenty) when he charms one. But after eighteen\u00a0frustrating months he is also desparate to find somebody who is prepared to\u00a0guard his private little secret in as remote a place as possible.<\/p>\n
This remotest of places is his ancestral estate, and, as far as\u00a0Northanger Abbey\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0imaginative heroine is concerned, such a place must surely\u00a0be haunted : she is the star in a parody on the gothic story. If one knows how\u00a0to catch an expert, the resulting opportunity is too good to miss, and already in\u00a0her first sentence, Jane Austen sums up virtually every argument that\u00a0Literature Studies has at one time or another held against a governess who is\u00a0seeing ghosts :<\/p>\n “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n go to next chapter<\/a>\u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span>\u00a0back to the previous chapter<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cOne wonders whether James intends to put us in mind of Jane Austen and the\u00a0Bront\u00eb sisters by using this formulation?\u201d (Adrian Dover) The Bront\u00eb sisters had no connection to Hampshire whatsoever, and this\u00a0note seems to suggest the editor\u2019s identification of … Continue reading \n