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
The next morning, Agnes comes down for breakfast and is left waiting for ages until Rosalie appears. Rosalie insists on showing her Ashby Park’s gardens. As the women walk, a man with an unpleasant face rides by on horseback. Rosalie whispers that she loathes him. When Agnes asks who he is, Rosalie explains that he’s her husband, Sir Thomas Ashby. Agnes points out that Rosalie knew what Sir Ashby was like when she married him, but Rosalie claims that she didn’t know the half of it—and she wishes she had listened to Agnes’s warnings. He’s controlling and wishes to keep her in the countryside so she can’t flirt with Harry Meltham or spend money, though he himself gambles, has affairs, and drinks too much.
Mrs. Murray taught her daughter to believe that “reformed rakes make the best husbands,” but it seems that Sir Thomas Ashby is not reformed: he continues to binge drink, gamble, and conduct affairs after marrying Rosalie. Implicitly, Mrs. Murray hid the worst of Sir Thomas Ashby’s behavior from Rosalie before the wedding because she wanted Rosalie to marry the richest, highest-ranking man possible—a deception that shows how Mrs. Murray’s poor education of Rosalie and misplaced values have condemned her daughter to an unhappy marriage. Moreover, having been educated only to flirt, Rosalie lacks the internal resources of someone like Agnes to make the best of an unhappy situation: to console herself, she only knows how to flirt and buy things.
Themes
Rosalie bursts into tears. Agnes pities Rosalie both for having married Sir Ashby and for misunderstanding what a good life consists of. She advises Rosalie to work improvements on her husband—and, if she can’t, to stand fast to her own morals, find comfort in religion, and focus on her child. Rosalie says she can’t focus all her life on her daughter. She won’t be able to find any enjoyment in watching the girl grow up to become more beautiful than Rosalie and have fun that Rosalie can’t anymore. As for Agnes’s moral teachings, Rosalie might follow them if she were middle-aged, but while she’s young, she wants pleasure.
Agnes’s parents educated her to find meaning and self-respect in moral behavior, religious devotion, and care for others. As such, Agnes believes that Rosalie can improve her life through religion and care for her baby daughter. Rosalie, who never received a moral education like Agnes’s, cannot accept the religious stoicism and other-focused life that Agnes advises.
Themes
Agnes firmly repeats her advice that Rosalie pursue goodness, the sooner the better. She also suggests that Rosalie try to make a friend and ally of her mother-in-law. Yet she suspects that Rosalie won’t take her advice, which makes the visit to Ashby Park even more unpleasant. Agnes leaves a few days later, gently rejecting Rosalie’s requests that she stay longer—and thinking that if Rosalie had what she wanted, she wouldn’t want Agnes’s company.
Agnes’s visit to Ashby Park constitutes a final failure in her attempt to educate Rosalie: though Agnes has attempted to teach Rosalie moral behavior and religious devotion through instruction and example, Rosalie ultimately learned values from her superficial, materialistic mother that Agnes was not able to counteract. As such, Agnes is unable to help Rosalie in her unwise, unhappy marriage.
Themes
