Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Agnes Grey, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Education, Authority, and Class
Money vs. Love in Marriage
Women and Fulfillment
Power and Cruelty
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Though Agnes believes that all true stories have a lesson to teach; some teach a lot, some only a little. She isn’t sure how much her story has to teach, but—having changed her subjects’ names to protect their anonymity—she’ll let her audience judge.
Agnes’s mother, a squire’s daughter, decided to marry Richard Grey, a clergyman with a small personal property and a modest income. She persisted even though her alarmed family warned her that she would have to give up her carriage and maid. Her father threatened to disown her, thinking that would stop the marriage. It didn’t: Richard Grey wanted to marry Agnes’s mother, of whom he thought highly, whether or not she had money, while she would rather work than give up Richard.
Middle-class women in Victorian society had few options for employment. As such, women like Agnes’s mother, a squire’s daughter, were economically dependent on their families of origin or their husbands. A woman who wanted to marry a poor man could find herself impoverished if her family disapproved of the marriage and cut her off. Using Agnes’s mother as an example, the novel thus illustrates how middle-class Victorian woman sometimes had to choose between love and economic security in marriage.
Themes
Agnes’s mother and Richard have six children, of which two—Agnes and her older sister Mary—survive. Agnes and Mary are homeschooled by their educated parents, so they rarely interact with the outside world. Though their mother never seems to regret marrying Richard, Richard—a melancholy man—worries about how much she gave up and often tries to figure out how to increase his wealth, though not by spending less. He likes to buy his family good clothes and give money to poor people.
Agnes’s mother’s happiness in her marriage to poor clergyman Richard Grey suggests that she made the right decision in choosing love over economic comfort, despite Richard’s guilt at her having to make such a choice.
Themes
A friend of Richard’s convinces him to invest in the friend’s merchant business, claiming that Richard will make double on the investment. Richard sells part of his inheritance to fund the business, and the merchant sets out. Unfortunately, the merchant’s ship wrecks, the merchant drowns, and Richard’s investment is lost. Richard takes the disaster hard, blaming himself for worsening Agnes’s mother’s situation, and his health suffers. The family sells its carriage and pony, lets go all but one servant, and tries to save on food and coal.
Richard Grey makes a risky investment hoping to improve his wife’s economic comfort—and the Grey family ends up worse than before. This outcome implies that so long as a family is economically stable, it ought not to take risks seeking more money than it needs—a loving home environment is, perhaps, better for a happy life than riches.
Themes
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Agnes wants to work around the house, but her active, competent mother babies her, preferring that she study rather than help. One day, Agnes’s mother suggests that Mary sell drawings and paintings to an art dealer. When Agnes expresses a desire to contribute too, her mother suggests that she make drawings as well. But Agnes proposes her own idea: to work as a governess. When her mother laughs, Agnes explains that she knows enough to teach small children, whom she adores. She appeals to her mother to let her try.
Agnes’s desire to help support her family suggests both her loving generosity and her resolve to exercise her talents. Notably, Victorian society gives women relatively few outlets for exercising their talents and supporting themselves: while trying to think of ways to support themselves, the Grey women can come up with only selling art or becoming educators of some kind.
Themes
When Agnes’s mother exclaims that Agnes is a child herself, Agnes points out that she’s older than 18. She can work—she just hasn’t had the chance. When Richard walks in and hears the discussion, he laughs at Agnes too, but then he tears up. Agnes’s parents conclude that they neither want nor need Agnes to leave the home. Yet Agnes keeps thinking how good it would be to teach children good morals, to earn money, and to show her family what she’s capable of. After a few days, she convinces her dubious parents to consent to her plan and gets a job with the Bloomfields, acquaintances of her father’s sister.
Agnes’s resolve to become a governess emphasizes her desire to exercise her talents in a society that provides limited outlets for middle-class women’s energy. Meanwhile, her idealization of the role of governess suggests that she sees educating children—particularly in good behavior and values—as a genuinely worthwhile use of her time and skill.
Themes
Agnes, though hopeful about the job, is sad to leave home: she kisses her favorite pet pigeons and thinks how much bigger the kitten will be when she returns home for Christmas. The morning she leaves, she says goodbye to her family, gets into a rented coach, and starts sobbing. As the coach drives away, she looks back at her village and prays for all who live there.
Agnes’s tenderness toward her pet pigeons and the family kitten both shows her love for animals and implicitly models how the novel thinks people should treat creatures dependent on them: namely, with gentleness and respect.
Themes
