The Bronte Sisters & The Governess

I love reading literature about women with fortitude and moxy, and the stories/letters written by the Bronte sisters did not lead me yearning. There bold convictions and straightforward letters were filled with such emotion and self sureness that was/is unexpected of Victorian women. I was so taken back by there vivid approach to telling their dislikes for being a governess, I wondered if the duality of their lives and “thoughts” were not, somewhat, dangerous on many levels.

In public, the typical governess appeared to a meek, attentive whipping girl for her subjects and mistress. She had no thought or existence outside of household commands. Her every move and thought was controlled by the needs of the house. Or were they? Was the governess so dutiful, that she lost her wit and being in order for employment? According to the Bronte sisters’ letters, a governess is a woman who does what she must to survive in public, and in private is the woman she wishes to be.

It comes as no surprise that governesses were verbally abused by their mistresses. Though, the governess’s job seemed imprisoning, she had a freedom not bestowed to the lady of the household, because she was not, in essence, a lady.

A lady would have never been able to speak to her master as the character Agnes Grey, from Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey, did and live without being beaten. Only a woman fed up with unruly children, a mistress with too much time, and an unforgiving master would be bold enough to say, “Then, sir, you must call them [the children] yourself, if you please…” (563) after her master insisted she wrangle his unruly children in from the snow, and not care the consequence. The beauty in her statement, though polite, is that it is against all the rules given by Sarah Stickney Ellis, because, again those rules were for “ladies.” Governesses weren’t ladies, they were simply governesses and they, without knowing, were smudging away at the definitions that defined women in general. Could the blurred social ranking of the governess be one of the pillars for women’s liberation?

Now, let us take a moment to speculate what Agnes Grey would have said had she been a modern woman in the movie The Nanny Diaries. I believe her monologue would have been similar to this:

“Then, sir, you must call them [the children] yourself, if you please, for they won’t listen to me…for all I care, the brats can catch a hellish cold or suffer from pneumonia. Frankly, I quit!”

Frankly, I would quit too. And because of the hardship suffered by these strong, enterprising ladies I have the right to.