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Chapter 8: The ‘Coming Out’
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
When Agnes reenters the schoolroom after her Christmas vacation, Rosalie demands to tell her about the ball. She counts for Agnes all the aristocrats who attended her ball, gloats about how much more beautiful she was than the other women, and rejoices at her many “conquests.” Agnes asks why she would need more than one, suggesting that even one would be too much unless Rosalie liked the man back.
Mrs. Murray has taught Rosalie to value her attractiveness to the exclusion of her other qualities and to take ensnaring men’s hearts as her chief ambition. Agnes, formed by a very different early family education, finds Rosalie’s celebration of her “conquests” baffling.
Themes
Rosalie pooh-poohs this idea and begins describing her admirers, including a married nobleman (to Agnes’s horror) and Sir Thomas Ashby. Evidently Sir Ashby, though wealthy, is an “ugly beast,” but Mrs. Murray has told Rosalie that she will see past this fact soon enough. Rosalie also mentions Harry Meltham (whom she likes but does not see as a serious prospect because he’s a younger son) and the village rector Mr. Hatfield. As an aside, Rosalie mentions that Mr. Hatfield has a new curate. When Agnes asks about him, Rosalie says the man, Mr. Weston, is an “ugly, stupid blockhead” and refuses to talk of him further.
Mrs. Murray encourages Rosalie to overlook that Sir Thomas Ashby is an “ugly beast,” a description that implicates both his physical appearance (“ugly”) and his manners (“beast”). Sir Thomas Ashby, unlike Rosalie’s other single admirers, has a title—so Mrs. Murray’s implicit instruction to Rosalie to ignore his physical and behavioral ugliness indicates that Mrs. Murray wants Rosalie to marry the highest-ranking man she can regardless of his personal attractions. This desire is another example of Mrs. Murray foisting questionable ambitions and values onto her daughter.
Themes
Though bored, Agnes asks Rosalie which admirer she prefers. Rosalie claims to scorn them all. Though Harry Meltham is the most entertaining and Mr. Hatfield the most intelligent, she guesses she’ll end up accepting Sir Ashby, the “wickedest.” Agnes asks why Rosalie would do that if Sir Ashby is a bad man whom she dislikes. Rosalie explains that if she has to marry, she’d like to be “Lady Ashby of Ashby Park,” but she would prefer to be young, single, and flirtatious forever—and she hopes to remain so until the last possible moment, after having broken thousands of hearts. Agnes suggests that if these are Rosalie’s ideas about marriage, she ought not marry at all.
Rosalie has learned—likely from Mrs. Murray—to value status over moral goodness. Ergo, she is willing to marry her “wickedest” suitor to gain a title and an estate, Ashby Park. Yet Rosalie is ambitious in her way: she would prefer exercising her talents and powers to getting married. Unfortunately, due to her poor moral education and the limited opportunities available to Victorian women, her talents and powers all lie in the arena of flirtation—which, as Agnes’s commentary suggests, doesn’t set Rosalie up for a happy marriage when she does accept a suitor.
Themes
