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
After Rosalie turns 18, she plans to be introduced to society with an enormous ball on January 3. The Murrays will invite all the aristocrats, gentlemen, and ladies in their village and the surrounding countryside. The December beforehand, while Agnes is reading a letter from her sister Mary, Rosalie interrupts her. Rosalie tells Agnes to put away her “stupid” letter and says that Agnes has to delay leaving on holiday until after the ball. When Agnes points out that she won’t attend the ball, Rosalie says that Agnes will be able to see her in her ball dress and “be ready to worship her.”
Rosalie calls Agnes’s letter “stupid” without knowing its contents and asks Agnes to postpone her holiday in order to “worship” Rosalie in her new dress. Rosalie’s behavior shows her egotism and casual disrespect for Agnes as a low-status employee—yet, at the same time, her desire that Agnes witness her triumph implies her unconscious respect and liking for Agnes.
Themes
Agnes tells Rosalie that she wants to see her family—and that her sister, Mary, is getting married in January. When Rosalie asks why Agnes didn’t mention this news earlier, Agnes says she just learned about it in her “stupid” letter. Rosalie asks whether Mary’s fiancé is young, good-looking, and wealthy, to which Agnes replies that he’s the vicar of a nearby parish—middle-aged, “only decent,” and “only comfortable.” When Rosalie expresses utter horror, Agnes points out that Rosalie never asked whether the man was good, kind, or intelligent—and he’s all those things. Rosalie is still horrified by the vision of Mary’s plain clothes and visits to “poor parishioners.”
In this scene, Agnes gently and indirectly tries to educate Rosalie. By revealing that Agnes learned of her sister’s marriage in the letter Rosalie called “stupid,” Agnes suggests to Rosalie that Agnes’s correspondence may be important even if Agnes is a low-status governess. By describing her sister’s fiancé as “only decent” and “only comfortable” yet good, kind, and intelligent, she implicitly corrects Rosalie’s shallow views of what makes a good husband. Yet Rosalie, shaped by the values of her status-seeking family, largely fails to take Agnes’s point.
Themes
