In the novel Villette our
main character is Lucy Snowe, a quiet under spoken character who seems to rely
on other characters to tell her own story for her. I think that the opposite
can be said for Esther Summerson in Bleak
House because she is out spoken, she typically says everything she is
thinking and usually if she doesn’t it’s because it doesn’t matter, it’s easier
to get to know Esther as a character unlike with Lucy who you have to read in
to everything that she says more to find out how she is feeling. They do have
many qualities the same though, they are both very intelligent women which they
prove through their narrative and Lucy’s ability to teach, they are also both
very hard working in everything that they do, such as Esther with her
housekeeping, she seems sometimes like a mother in that way.
Another similarity between the two is they are both orphans,
or so we are led to believe for half of Bleak House. They are raised by god
parents until something happens and they go away. Lucy travels to the school
and Esther travels to Bleak House where they find their futures or seem to find
their futures. They meet the people that they want to spend their lives with
even if it includes losing that same person.
Behind their hard work they are both very passionate people,
this is harder to find in Lucy for a while because she isn’t as open in her
narrative about herself as Esther is. But we see this passion in both of them
when they are doing the things that they love. When Esther is helping the
children, or Ada, or Richard she is so passionate about it it fills her
narrative.
The last similarity that I find between the two is something
that was discussed in class. These two gain their power from the things that
are given to them. Lucy is given a school that had to be built by M. Paul and
everything was made just for her and she gets her power from this. And Esther
got her power her control over her life from Jarndyce with the house that was
made with everything that she wanted, everything that she adored was in this
house. These two things gave these women power and that power had to come from
men the men that they were passionate about.
You’re right about the two narrators from Bleak House and Villette being similar. You wouldn’t think of it since both have very different feel to them. I thought your point about the narrative styles being different in the way that we perceive the characters. With Esther, it feels like the readers are much more privileged to her thoughts and that she is more straight forward about things than Lucy. At the same time though, both are alike because they both manipulate their narratives to reveal things when they want to. I’m thinking about Lucy and the “nun,” and Esther and Mr. Woodcut.
ReplyDeleteI still find it so curious that M. Paul and Jarndyce have similar impulses about the heroines of our novels. The big difference, of course, is that Jarndyce is doing it so that Esther can marry Dr. W, but still. It's such an unusual yet touching gesture for both male characters.
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