Agnes Grey suggests that children learn their behavior and values first and foremost from their parents and families. Rich parents try to offload the responsibility of educating their children in values as well as academic subjects onto governesses, women of their genteel social class but a lower economic class. Yet because the parents treat governesses like servants, not equals, the governesses lack the authority to enforce their teachings. Thus, rich children learn to treat the governesses with contempt and therefore never really learn from them. This complicated dynamic plays out in both governess jobs held by the novel’s titular protagonist, Agnes. In her first job, with the Bloomfield family, young Tom Bloomfield has already learned to ignore women in authority and to torture animals from his father Mr. Bloomfield and his Uncle Robson. Agnes tries to model better behavior for Tom, yet because his parents—who don’t want a poor woman disciplining their son—won’t give her the authority to punish him for bad behavior, she has no leverage to shape Tom, and so he never improves. In Agnes’s second job, with the Murray family, she tries to teach moral seriousness and dutifulness to teenage flirt Rosalie Murray and ladylike behavior to swearing tomboy Matilda. Yet once again, Agnes’s employer Mrs. Murray tells Agnes to leave any serious criticism of her children to her because she believes a governess doing so would be socially inappropriate. At the same time as she deprives Agnes of authority, Mrs. Murray encourages irresponsibly flirtatious Rosalie to catch the richest man she can and largely avoids responsibility for Matilda’s behavior. She then blames Agnes rather than herself or Mr. Murray for habits her children developed before Agnes was hired. Unsurprisingly, Agnes makes no headway with Rosalie or Matilda—and Rosalie ends up in a disastrous marriage with a rich but cruel aristocrat, Sir Ashby, against Agnes’s express advice. Thus, the novel illustrates how rich parents, due to their classism, undermine governesses’ authority and so prevent them from effectively teaching children good values.
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Education, Authority, and Class Quotes in Agnes Grey
All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge. I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others; but the world may judge for itself.
“Surely, Tom, you would not strike your sister! I hope I shall never see you do that.”
“You will sometimes: I’m obliged to do it now and then to keep her in order.”
“But it is not your business to keep her in order, you know, that is for—”
“Well, now go and put on your bonnet.”
“Papa knows how I treat them, and he never blames me for it: he says it is just what he used to do when he was a boy.”
The habitual fear of their father’s peevish temper, and the dread of the punishments he was wont to inflict when irritated, kept them generally within bounds in his immediate presence. The girls, too, had some fear of their mother’s anger; and the boy might occasionally be bribed to do as she bid him by the hope of reward: but I had no rewards to offer, and as for punishments, I was given to understand, the parents reserved that privilege for themselves; and yet they expected me to keep my pupils in order.
I really liked her—when she did not rouse my indignation, or ruffle my temper by too great a display of her faults. These, however, I would fain persuade myself, were rather the effect of her education than her disposition: she had never been perfectly taught the distinction between right and wrong; she had, like her brothers and sisters, been suffered, from infancy, to tyrannise over nurses, governesses, and servants[.]
“You did not ask me if Mr Richardson were a good, wise, or amiable man.”
“Sir Thomas is young, rich and gay; but an ugly beast, nevertheless; however mamma says I should not mind that after a few months’ acquaintance.”
“But if I could always be young, I would always be single. I should like to enjoy myself thoroughly, and coquet with all the world, till I am on the verge of being called an old maid; and then, to escape the infamy of that, after having made ten thousand conquests, to break all their hearts save one, by marrying some high-born, rich, indulgent husband, whom, on the other hand, fifty ladies were dying to have.”
Habitual associates are known to exercise a great influence over each other’s minds and manners. Those whose actions are for ever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears, will naturally lead us, albeit against our will, slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, perhaps, to act and speak as they do.
“[W]hy, you must allow me some share of female vanity: I don’t pretend to be without that most essential attribute of our sex[.]”
If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior. So said the teachers of our childhood; and so say we to the children of the present day. All very judicious and proper, no doubt; but are such assertions supported by actual experience?
[B]esides my hope in God, my only consolation was in thinking that, though he knew it not, I was more worthy of his love than Rosalie Murray, charming and engaging as she was; for I could appreciate his excellence, which she could not: I would devote my life to the promotion of his happiness; she would destroy his happiness for the momentary gratification of her own vanity.
“It seems unnatural: but some people think rank and wealth the chief good; and, if they can secure that for their children, they think they have done their duty.”
“True: but is it not strange that persons of experience, who have been married themselves, should judge so falsely?”
Alas! how far the promise of anticipation exceeds the pleasure of possession!
“It’s the husband’s part to please the wife, not hers to please him; and if he isn’t satisfied with her as she is—and thankful to possess her too—he isn’t worthy of her, that’s all.”
“But you knew what he was before you married him.”
“No; I only thought so: I did not half know him really. I know you warned me against it, and I wish I had listened to you: but it’s too late to regret that now. And besides, mamma ought to have known better than either of us, and she never said anything against it—quite the contrary.”
