A Study Guide for Charlotte Bronte's "Villette"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Charlotte Bronte's "Villette," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535842143

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Villette

Charlotte Brontë

1853

Introduction

While best known for her novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë was also the author of three other novels as well as a small number of poems. Her 1853 novel Villette was not particularly well received by Brontë's contemporaries but is regarded among more recent critics and readers as an intense psychological portrait of a young woman tormented by her isolation, sense of loss, and unfulfilled longing. The protagonist of Villette, Lucy Snowe, is flung from one set of unpromising circumstances to another, until she resolves to make her way in the (fictional) French-speaking city of Villette. (Brontë herself studied and taught at a girls' school in French-speaking Brussels, Belgium.) There, Lucy is hired first as a governess and soon after as a teacher of English at a girls' school. The novel, based on some of Brontë's own experiences, traces Lucy's emotional journey, her struggle to find connection and personal fulfillment in a world in which single, young women who must provide for themselves are not looked upon with much favor or regarded as having much potential. Throughout the novel, Lucy's emotional battles take their toll on her mental and physical health. In addition to exploring the course of Lucy's personal fortunes, the novel also serves, to some degree, as a commentary on Brontë's society, as it touches on issues of class and religion. The status of women in this society, as well as Brontë's facility in drawing realistic psychological portraits of her characters, have resulted in a sustained interest in this and other Brontë novels.

First published by the firm Smith, Elder, in London in 1853, Villette is available in a modern edition published in 2001 by The Modern Library. This edition includes a section of notes, written by Deborah Lutz, in which most of the French passages of the novel are translated.

Author Biography

Born in Yorkshire, England, on April 21, 1816, Brontë was the daughter of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. Brontë's father was an ordained priest in the Church of England, and he raised Brontë and her siblings (four sisters and a brother) with the help of Brontë's aunt following Maria's death in 1821. In 1820, the Brontës moved from Yorkshire to the town of Haworth, where Patrick Brontë's had been appointed curate. With her sisters Maria and Elizabeth, Brontë attended the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire in 1824. Along with many other students, Brontë's sisters Maria and Elizabeth contracted tuberculosis, and both died in 1825.

Bronteë returned home to study under her father's tutelage. In 1831, with the help of financial support from her godparents, Brontë was able to attend a small private school, Roe Head, run by Margaret Wooler and her sisters. Bronteë then taught at the Wooler school from 1835 to 1838. She also worked as a governess. In 1842, Bronteë and her sister Emily traveled to Brussels to attend school at the Pensionnat Heger. They remained for a year, returning home after their aunt's death. Bronteë returned