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Chapter 21: The School
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
Arriving at Ashby Park, Agnes finds it beautiful but hardly thinks it worth the price Rosalie paid for it—though she mentions that she isn’t inclined to criticize Rosalie anymore. Rosalie tries so hard to make Agnes, whom she assumes will be overawed by the grand surroundings, comfortable that Agnes is a little annoyed and discomfited. Agnes notices that Rosalie herself has lost weight and looks dispirited; she wants to ask how Rosalie is but feels unable to do so.
Rosalie’s obvious misery underscores another one of the main “lessons” of Agnes’s story: money and rank matter less than morality and love.
Themes
Rosalie shows Agnes her guest bedroom and a sitting room where she can take her meals if she doesn’t want to eat with Sir Ashby and his mother. Agnes, to Rosalie’s evident relief, says she would prefer to take her meals alone. Then Rosalie brings Agnes to the done-up drawing room—Agnes looks impressed to please her—and shows her various mementoes of her European honeymoon. When Agnes asks after Rosalie’s family and their village acquaintances, Rosalie mentions that jealous Sir Ashby took her away from London because Harry Meltham was following her around there. Agnes looks alarmed, and Rosalie claims that she can’t help having admirers.
Rosalie is relieved that Agnes doesn’t want to eat with Sir Thomas Ashby and his mother—suggesting either that Rosalie would be embarrassed to socialize with her low-ranking former governess in front of her high-ranking in-laws or that her high-ranking in-laws would likely be rude to Agnes. This underscores the callousness and cruelty in the Victorian social hierarchy. Meanwhile, the reappearance of Harry Meltham suggests that Rosalie—who has only ever been educated in how to flirt—has continued trying to “conquer” men after her marriage even though such behavior is not socially condoned for a married woman.
Themes
Agnes works her way around to asking after Mr. Weston. Rosalie says she doesn’t know much, only that he left the Horton village church about a month before due to constant conflict with Mr. Hatfield. Then she says she must dress for dinner—and curses her judgmental mother-in-law right in front of the footman. When Agnes points out that the footman must have heard her, Rosalie claims that footmen are just “automatons.”
Yet again, the conflict between Mr. Weston and Mr. Hatfield reminds readers of the former’s sincere religiosity in contrast with the latter’s hypocrisy. Rosalie’s claim that the footmen are “automatons”—i.e. robots—underscores how higher-ranking characters tend to treat lower-ranking characters as less than fully human.
Themes
Agnes takes her meal alone. Near bedtime, Rosalie comes to see her, apologizes for leaving her alone so long, and blames her mother-in-law—whom, she claims, criticizes Rosalie for leaving the drawing room after dinner if Sir Ashby comes in, even though he’s frequently drunk. Agnes suggests that Rosalie could try to use her intelligence and accomplishments to improve Sir Ashby’s mind and habits, but Rosalie says that it is a husband’s job to please his wife, not the other way around. Agnes tells Rosalie that she’s going to bed.
Agnes conceives of wives as having talents and duties that they can use to help and improve their husbands. By contrast, Rosalie has been thoroughly educated on how to catch a husband but not on how to occupy herself or behave toward her husband once she is married. As such, she finds herself angry and helpless in the face of her boorish husband’s bad behavior.
Themes
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