Villette

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1853

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Symbols & Motifs

Storms

Pathetic fallacy is a literary device where inanimate objects are given humanlike traits to reflect the mood of the work’s characters. In Villette, author Charlotte Brontë uses violent weather events to emphasize crucial moments in Lucy’s life and to mimic her afflicted mental state. Though Lucy’s name evokes peaceful wintry precipitation, many of the turning points in her life coincide with fierce storms. A raging downpour precedes the arrival of Polly at Bretton. Early in Lucy’s stay at Rue Fossette, she opens her window to a wild tempest, almost inviting it inside while the other boarders tremble with fright. After her bout with depression and illness, a menacing squall delivers Lucy to the doorstep of the Brettons. As Lucy learns the truth of M. Paul’s past, a deluge begins outside. The reader comes to recognize the gathering of storm clouds as foreshadowing major changes in the life of the protagonist.

These deluges culminate in the final storm that robs Lucy of her future with M. Paul. The author foreshadows this outcome during Lucy’s illness, which manifests with fevered hallucinations of shipwrecks. She gives few details of M. Paul’s end but says, “Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder—the tremor of whose plumes was storm. Peace, be still!” (495). With this last fateful gale, Lucy makes peace with her loss, submitting to the will of God; the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of weather reminds Lucy to surrender control of her life.

Shadows and Shades

The presence of a shadow requires both light and darkness. Mysterious specters in the narrative, beyond exemplifying the Gothic style popular in the era, represent Lucy’s repressed past trauma and her fears of a celibate, lonely life in the future.

Lucy Snowe begins her story living in the shadows of life at Bretton. She goes about her days barely noticed by those around her. John Bretton notes her propensity to exist just outside the light: “Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being inoffensive as a shadow” (409). The comparison underscores Lucy’s invisibility as a single woman with neither wealth nor remarkable good looks, but Lucy’s association with the shadows goes deeper. Lucy is drawn to the darkness both to conceal her secrets and to explore her own “darkness”—the passion, anger, and rebelliousness that society condemns in women.

In Villette, Lucy moves from residing in the shadows to being tormented by them. The apparition of the nun appears when she is languishing in mental distress. Lucy fears its potential to expose her mental weakness more than its capacity to harm her physically, but the nature of the specter—an unmarried, cloistered woman—speaks to her anxieties about leading a fulfilling and independent life. When the shade of the nun turns out to just be de Hamal in disguise, Lucy can put her fear of the wraith to rest. Lucy’s transformation is complete when she refuses Paulina’s request to be her companion, saying, “I was no bright lady’s shadow” (385). She no longer fears the life of a single woman, knowing her capacity to sustain herself without a husband, “thinking meantime [her] own thoughts, living [her] own life, in [her] own still, shadow-world" (151).

Mirrors and Faces

Mirrors can be a mechanism of truth or of distortion; they may also be the only way an individual can see their face. Villette uses mirrors and reflections as symbols to reveal the truth and illuminate key details in the text. M. Paul is called upon to “read” Lucy’s face when she first arrives at Rue Fossett and determines her character to be sound by doing so (a nod to the phrenology popular in the Victorian era). When John Graham reappears in the text, Lucy does not immediately divulge his identity, but she first realizes it when the two are left alone in a room together and he catches her watching him in the mirror—the same mirror Madame uses to spy on students. Madame Beck looks in that same mirror and is repelled by her aged face after John's rejection.

Lucy often struggles to recognize faces when she first sees people—a fact that echoes her role as the novel’s first person and occasionally unreliable narrator. Lucy as the narrator becomes a type of mirror as the reader can only see other characters as she sees them: “What contradictory attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to the eye with which we are viewed!” (389). Lucy’s perceptions of others may present a warped view of the other characters.

On two occasions, at the fête and the concert, Lucy sees herself in a mirror and is unnerved and almost fearful of her reflection: “I was pronounced to be en grande tenue, and requested to look in the glass. I did so with some fear and trembling; with more fear and trembling, I turned away” (267). Lucy struggles to accept what she sees. The fancy clothing and adornments are foreign to her, and she does not recognize herself in formal attire. However, the unsettling feelings go beyond her physical appearance. Lucy has no issue harshly judging individuals, but she shudders at the thought of how others might view her: “I faced a great mirror [...] Thus for the first, and perhaps only time in my life, I enjoyed the ‘giftie’ of seeing myself as others see me. No need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of regret” (271). Whether due to shame from the past or lack of self-confidence, Lucy is unmoored by her reflection, feeling it reveals too much of her true self to the world. As others around her struggle to know and understand her, Lucy also struggles to accept herself.