Journal 4

Grant Wengeler
Dr. Torgensen 
2/10/2020
Reading Journal #4
Villette
This novel was a great deal more developed than Jane Eyre, and I’m not entirely sure this is a good thing. Certainly, there are some exquisitely done changes that are only noticeable to somebody who read Jane Eyre first. First and most evident is the ending. Why so ambiguous? Like, seriously, I know she wants optimistic people to fill in the blanks with their own fairy tale and all that but why the heck did she leave out what happens to Paul. I guess it’s for the best because then we don’t have the possibility of a “bad” ending. 
The language is also  more extravagant in nature, at least to my perception. Jane Eyre felt as though it was far more direct. Villette is drawn out and poetic in many places. A glance at the last page shows this perfectly. Instead of telling the reader what happens, Lucy draws images of flowers blooming and celestial bodies in the heavens and a bunch of poetic blah blah blah. There’s nothing wrong with this by any means. In fact some may argue this adds to the novel in a similar way the use of French does. On that topic, French adds a lot to the immersion into the story and really transports the reader into the story in a way that only the best books can do. By manipulating my mind’s eye into visualizing her scenes using a language I don’t even understand Bronte has earned a great deal of respect from me. 
I get that Lucy believes in the nun, the same way Jane believed in the ghost, and that’s okay. However, I don’t believe in either of them. Lucy straight up withheld information from the reader when it comes out that Dr. John and John Graham are the same person, and that left me thinking that she’s a gosh dang liar. If she is so good at withholding truth then I’m inclined to believe that there would be no qualms about her lying to herself about the nun being a ghost. Sure, we realize that the nun is just a costume. However, we don’t know if the first few sightings were the same. There’s some room here for interpretation. Of course, the fact that she believes it is supernatural and it’s proven not to be shows that the narrator is even more unreliable.
Jane seemed more reliable as a narrator, and the addition of the unreliable narrator in a later novel shows some development. The language takes on a different tone, as if Villette was always meant to be a “swan song” for Bronte. Perhaps this conclusion is biased on my part, as I have the benefit of knowing she died a couple years after this novel was published. The lack of a “happy ending,” instead being replaced with the ambiguous ending, adds complexity that I only now realize was missing in the ending of Jane Eyre. I know I’ve been critical of this ending, but I have to admit it does provoke thought and that’s always neat. 
I’d like to end on a positive note by mentioning how cathartic it felt to have Lucy actually get her way in a situation where Jane would fall underfoot. Lucy has that can-do attitude that I believe is one of the reasons why John liked her so much. He knew he could set her up with resources and a job before he left and she would be capable of handling it. Lucy didn’t just fall underfoot the same way Jane did. Jane was a real go-getter as far as I could see, and I’m glad Bronte decided to include a character like her. Although, the emotional satisfaction was stretched out pretty thin throughout the novel and at the end I was left a little underwhelmed. Of course, this is just my take of the novel and I’m probably biased as heck. 





Work Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Villette. 1853. Oxford UP, 2008.

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