Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [8]
For a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shades of peculiarity as were ingrained in my nature—shades, certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my identity (p. 121).
Like most Brontë heroines it is Lucy’s singularity that causes others to notice her. These admirers include: Ginevra Fanshawe, a fashionable English pupil who “lived her full life in a ballroom; elsewhere she drooped dispirited” (p. 160); the suave and charming Graham Bretton, who reappears in France as Dr. John; and the brilliant, tempestuous Paul Emmanuel, a fellow teacher. All of them bring Lucy into the spotlight seemingly against her will. The lovely Ginevra, whom Lucy first meets on the boat to France, is a spoiled, determined girl out to catch a suitable husband. Ginevra’s antagonistic and playful relationship with Lucy is a contrast to the quieter, more subdued interactions between Lucy and Polly. Unlike Polly, who wishes to be good, Ginevra revels in her selfishness and ability to spark desire in others.
In a strange series of events, Lucy’s identity becomes intertwined with Ginevra’s. First, in the darkness of the garden, a letter intended for Ginevra is dropped in her lap. In a subsequent scene, Lucy is persuaded by Paul Emmanuel to act as Ginevra’s suitor in a school play, a part she insists on playing in her own dress with the ornament of a tie to signify her masculinity. She then discovers that Ginevra is her rival for Dr. John’s affections, and she finally comes face to face with Ginevra in a telling scene in which they are looking at one another in a mirror. Lucy narrates: “She turned me and herself round; she viewed us both on all sides; she smiled, she waved her curls, she retouched her sash, she spread her dress, and finally, letting go my arm, and curtseying with mock respect, she said: ‘I would not be you for a kingdom’ ” (p. 164). Cruelly, Ginevra continues, “I believe you never were in love and never will be; you don’t know the feeling: and so much the better, for though you might have your own heart broken, no living heart will you ever break” (pp. 164—165).
Ginevra’s mistaken assumptions that Lucy will never be in love and that she will never break someone else’s heart are challenges Lucy will win by the end of the story. In the domain of bourgeois social conventions, Ginevra cannot see herself as powerful until she crowns Lucy as powerless. Yet Lucy is not devastated by Ginevra’s remarks, nor does she see her as completely ridiculous. Brontë’s narrative juxtaposition of the two characters, particularly Lucy’s role as Ginevra’s scolding conscience and as her suitor in the school play, suggests that Lucy must contend somehow with the visible possibilities of her identity.
Lucy begins to emerge as an embodied character, a woman with passion and desire, in relation to both her opposition to Ginevra and her secret wish to possess Ginevra’s seductive qualities. When she discovers that Dr. John is Ginevra’s clandestine admirer “Isadore,” Lucy rages inwardly at Ginevra’s unfair treatment of him:
Is it possible that fine generous gentleman—handsome as a vision—offers you his honorable hand and gallant heart, and promises to protect your flimsy person and wretchless mind through the storms and struggles of life—and you hang back—you scorn, you sting, you torture him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where is it? Does it lie all in your beauty? (pp. 167-168).
Against her will, Lucy yearns to be noticed and to be loved