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
Rosalie has started going to church twice on Sundays to give her admirers more opportunity to admire her, both in church and on the walk home—she has stopped taking the carriage to allow her acquaintances to accompany her. Agnes walks with Rosalie and Matilda or takes the carriage depending on the girls’ whims. Agnes dislikes walking with Rosalie and Matilda because their acquaintances always ignore her, and she doesn’t want either to walk with them in silence or walk far behind and so seem to “acknowledge [her] own inferiority.”
Agnes is neither stupid nor emotionally hardened: she knows that the Murrays and their acquaintances are slighting her due to her lower social status, and it pains her. Yet she is also proud enough not to want to “acknowledge [her] own inferiority”—because she believes herself inferior to the Murrays only economically, not in terms of real values such as goodness.
Themes
One Sunday, Agnes hangs back from the walking party to enjoy the spring weather when she sees some primroses blooming high up in an oak’s roots on a bank. Agnes tries to pick them, but she can’t reach. To her surprise, Mr. Weston comes up behind her, asks to help, and gets the primroses for her. Agnes thanks him, feeling intensely grateful for his considerateness, yet she also feels rather awkward. As they resume walking, Mr. Weston notes that Rosalie and Matilda have left Agnes alone and them asks Agnes about her favorite flowers. She explains that her favorites are those she associates with her home: primroses, bluebells, and heath-flowers.
Flowers are often associated with romantic love in literature and culture. In this passage, Agnes associates flowers with her loving home—so that when Mr. Weston, on whom she has an unstated crush, gives her flowers, the novel may be hinting that he could provide a new loving home for her through marriage. Mr. Weston notices that Rosalie and Matilda are impolitely shunning Agnes, showing his concern for Agnes and his implicit judgment on the Murray girls’ status-consciousness.
Themes
Mr. Weston suggests that Agnes must derive comfort from having a home even if it’s far away. Warmly, Agnes says she couldn’t live without it. Mr. Weston replies that she could: people’s hearts are tougher than they think. Less than a year ago, he “lost the last and dearest of [his] early friends” and has no home anymore, but he still feels some hope for life, even if he envies those with homes. Agnes suggests that he may still have a happy future, and he answers that he already has “the power and the will to be useful,” which makes him happy. Then Mr. Weston parts with Agnes to approach a farmhouse.
Though it is not immediately obvious who Mr. Weston means by “the last and dearest of [his] early friends,” he has clearly suffered intense grief. Agnes’s suggestion that Mr. Weston can still have a happy future may betray her subconscious desire to be part of that happy future—perhaps eventually as his wife—while Mr. Weston’s claim that “the power and the will to be useful” make him happy reminds readers of his charitable works and religious sincerity.
Themes
As Agnes walks, she thinks about Mr. Weston’s words: having heard that his mother died before he came to the village, she infers that his mother is the “last and dearest” friend he lost. She feels deep, emotional sympathy for his grief and admires his hard work despite it; she also predicts that he can still find a new home and a life partner. While praying that he finds a worthy partner, she thinks “how delightful it would be to—” but then she cuts herself off, thinking that no one is bound to share all their thoughts with other people.
Agnes is contemplating Mr. Weston finding a worthy wife when she thinks “how delightful it would be to—” and then cuts herself off. Her self-interruption suggests that she may want to marry Mr. Weston but is somewhat embarrassed to admit it.
Themes
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When Agnes returns to Horton Lodge, Rosalie makes insinuations about why Agnes walks behind the group and why Agnes defends Mr. Weston when Rosalie criticizes him. Agnes tells Rosalie not to be silly. When Rosalie and Matilda keep teasing Agnes, she exclaims that this was only the second time she’d talked to him. When the girls ask where Agnes talked to him first, Agnes says at Nancy’s cottage—and Rosalie laughingly accuses Agnes of visiting Nancy to rendezvous with him. Yet the girls quickly move on from teasing Agnes, who goes up to her room and prays to God for “another’s welfare” along with her own. She also presses one of the primroses into her Bible.
Readers may suspect that Rosalie has guessed correctly when she insinuates that Agnes has a crush on Mr. Weston. Yet Rosalie is incorrect in claiming that Agnes was visiting Nancy Brown to run into Mr. Weston, as Agnes did not know that Mr. Weston was an acquaintance of Nancy’s when she began visiting Nancy. Rather, Agnes visits Nancy out of real friendship and religious charity. Rosalie’s cynicism about Agnes’s motives contrasts with Agnes’s religious sincerity and highlights a difference in the two young women’s approach to romantic matters. When Agnes presses a primrose that Mr. Weston gave her into her Bible, meanwhile, it underscores the role that religious admiration has played in forming Agnes’s crush on Mr. Weston while emphasizing that the primroses symbolize romantic love.
Themes
