Agnes Grey

by

Anne Brontë

Themes and Colors
Education, Authority, and Class Theme Icon
Money vs. Love in Marriage Theme Icon
Women and Fulfillment Theme Icon
Power and Cruelty Theme Icon
Religion Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Agnes Grey, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Money vs. Love in Marriage Theme Icon

In Agnes Grey, genteel women are pressured to marry for money and rank and punished socially if they don’t—yet the novel suggests that women who marry for love have at least a chance at happiness, while those who marry for money end up miserable. The novel illustrates the pressure women face to marry for money and rank through both Agnes’s mother and Agnes’s student Rosalie Murray. Agnes’s mother, the daughter of a rich squire, fell in love with Agnes’s father Richard Grey, who’s a poor clergyman but a good person. When she chose to marry him rather than a man with money and a title, her rich family disowned her. Yet despite the Greys’ limited means, they have a happy marriage. After Richard dies, Agnes’s mother receives a letter from her father offering to support her financially and write Agnes and her sister Mary into his will if she will admit she was wrong to marry Richard—highlighting that the pressure to marry for money never fully disappears, even as it changes form over time. Agnes’s mother refuses, claiming never to have regretted her 30 years of marriage to her best friend. By contrast, 18-year-old Rosalie Murray marries Sir Thomas Ashby—with her mother Mrs. Murray’s express encouragement—despite having heard alarming rumors about his character, because he is the richest and highest-born of her many suitors. She almost immediately regrets the decision, finding Sir Thomas a controlling husband who cheats on her and drinks too much. Agnes’s mother’s fate suggests that while  a good marriage doesn’t guarantee total happiness (money problems and death are, the novel shows, still inevitable), women who marry men they love and admire have a chance at good times and the consolation of self-respect in hard times. Rosalie’s fate, on the other hand, shows that women who marry men who aren’t good people and who they don’t love are doomed to be miserable even in rich surroundings.

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Money vs. Love in Marriage Quotes in Agnes Grey

Below you will find the important quotes in Agnes Grey related to the theme of Money vs. Love in Marriage.
Chapter 1: The Parsonage Quotes

An elegant house and spacious grounds were not to be despised; but she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in the world.

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Agnes’s Mother/Alice Grey, Agnes’s Father/Richard Grey
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: The ‘Coming Out’ Quotes

“You did not ask me if Mr Richardson were a good, wise, or amiable man.”

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Agnes’s Mother/Alice Grey, Agnes’s Father/Richard Grey, Mary, Rosalie Murray
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9: The Ball Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Rosalie Murray (speaker), Agnes Grey, Mary, Mrs. Murray, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:

“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.”

Related Characters: Rosalie Murray (speaker), Agnes Grey, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 62–63
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: The Cottagers Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Mr. Weston
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13: The Primroses Quotes

As for the primroses, I kept two of them in a glass in my room until they were completely withered, and the housemaid threw them out; and the petals of the other I pressed between the leaves of my Bible—I have them still, and mean to keep them always.

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Agnes’s Mother/Alice Grey, Agnes’s Father/Richard Grey, Mr. Weston, Rosalie Murray
Related Symbols: Flowers
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17: Confessions  Quotes

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?

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Mr. Weston, Rosalie Murray
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18: Mirth and Mourning Quotes

“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?”

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Mr. Weston (speaker), Rosalie Murray, Mrs. Murray, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19: The Letter Quotes

“[I]f he married a richer wife, misfortunes and trials would no doubt have come upon him still; while I am egotist enough to imagine that no other woman could have cheered him through that so well: not that I am superior to the rest, but I was made for him, and he for me[.]”

Related Characters: Agnes’s Mother/Alice Grey (speaker), Agnes Grey, Agnes’s Father/Richard Grey, Rosalie Murray, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21: The School Quotes

Alas! how far the promise of anticipation exceeds the pleasure of possession!

Related Characters: Rosalie Murray (speaker), Agnes Grey, Mrs. Murray, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22: The Visit Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Rosalie Murray (speaker), Agnes Grey, Agnes’s Mother/Alice Grey, Agnes’s Father/Richard Grey, Mrs. Murray, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23: The Park Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Agnes Grey (speaker), Rosalie Murray (speaker), Mrs. Murray, Sir Thomas Ashby
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24: The Sands Quotes

“I am not so presumptuous as to believe that […] though you tell it me; but if it were so, I am rather particular in my notions of a companion for life, and perhaps I might not find one to suit me among the ladies you mention.”

Related Characters: Mr. Weston (speaker), Agnes Grey
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis: