Fear and Solitude: Bronte, Snowe and Villette

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Charlotte Bronte's life against the main character of her novel, Villette, to reveal two women afraid of imagination and light and in preference of isolation and shadows. The paper also looks at Bronte's unimaginative childhood, tough upbringing,and lonely life in Belgium and reflects how these experiences translated onto paper in the character of Lucy Snowe. It also discusses how light and dark images are used often in the novel to convey Snowe's fear or the light of life and her preference for the darkness of solitude.

From the Paper:

"Lucy's favorite place at the school is the alley. It is blocked from any sunlight by the vines and branches which have grown above it, making it "quiet and shady" (174). For Lucy, who prefes the shade and is herself a shadow, the alley is a perfect haven: "the very gloom of the walk attracted me" (174). Gordon, referring to the alley as a path, comments that Lucy "takes this path only when others are at prayer. In short, she takes the path as Protestant and alien" (259). This statement echoes Bronte's own loneliness and separation while in Brussels. Norman Sherry adds, "it is hers in actuality and in symbol -- for Lucy's world is then as sequestered and isolated as this alley, her nature is just as repressed and concealed" (97). When Lucy decides to hide the letters, she buries them in the alley. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bronte, Charlotte. Villete. Ed Mark Lilly. London: Penguin, 1985.
• Gordon, Lyndall. Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994.
• Heilman, Robert B. "Charlotte Bronte, Reason, ad the Moon." Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte. Ed Barbara Timm Gates. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990. 34-49.
• Hook, Andrew D. "Charlotte Bronte, the Imagination, and Villette." The Brontes. Ed Ian Gregor. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970. 137-156
• Sherry, Norman. Charlotte and Emily Bronte. New York: Arco Publishing, 1970.

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