Charlotte Bronte's Shriley

[Claire Copeland]

Shirley is a good novel though it is not as entertaining in my view as Jane Eyre or Villette. Shirley's best parts are the parts that explore the character's hearts. Caroline's character appears to me very much like Charlotte Bronte's own. Caroline seem the heroine of the novel, not Shirley. I believe that Charlotte based much of her portrait of Shirley on her own sister, Emily. As Shirley was written during the time of Emily's death, it seems that Charlotte's emotions of grief for Emily took over the book as allows Shirley to dominate it. I think Shirley would have taken a different direction had Emily not died in the middle of Charlotte's writing of it. Overall, Shirley is enjoyable though the explorations of the characters feelings are more interesting to me than the story of the mill riots.

[Yorkshirelass]

I have just finishd reading "Shirley" after two previous aborted attemps. This was not an easy novel to read, unlike "Jane Eyre". She will keep me up all night until I've finished it!
I think that both Caroline and Shirley are facets of Charlotte's own character in many respects. Admittedly Emily does haunt the text, but I think Anne does also.
When Carloine is ill for a time, that is where Emily is drawn, and again when Shirley thinks she might die after the dog bites her, and she thinks she might have rabies. I notice the practical Yorkshire thoroughness in Charlotte, when she has Shirley rush off to a solicitor to draw up her will, however!
Peter Augustus Malone has to be shades of Branwell, the much loved but profligate brother. And Mrs Pryor, that has to be Aunt Branwell, who brought them up, their substitute mother.
Yorkshirelass. 04/08/05

[sweetsunray]

I've read Shirley for the first time now, and at least in narration style I seriously prefer Shirley over Villette. It read like a train to me (for the most part) - description, wit, conversation, reflection were often much more to the point imo than in Villette and emotionally accessible. It reminded me of Jane Austen's ironic style in characterisation, and that certainly is a compliment. There is but one narration style that I liked less, and that was the Luis narration (especially his diary parts). I also wonder why CB suddenly altered her narration style...

She starts with an omniscient witty 3rd person, and then she drops it for Luis' long musings over Shirley, and they were as flighty and tedious to read as many of Lucy Snow's reveries that seem to flaunder and go nowhere. IMO the book Shirley didn't need these diary reveries from Luis or at least not as extensive.

Something I liked as a feature, was how the narrator told the plot via character to character, almost like a camera following one character until they meet another more meaningful one, and then start following that person: starting at the curate's party, the pastor joining, going to the mill where we meet Roger, who we will follow until we meet Caroline and we remain a very long time with her. Caroline seems to be the main character, because we hardly follow the other characters after her introduction, other than her own perspective.
But after she recovers and her mother reveals who she is, suddenly the camera starts to flaunder, loses sight of her and concentrates on Shirley, including Luis' diary reveries. To me it comes across as CB having lost her trail. Where it worked originally to tightenthe story, it then collapses under the weight of the multi povs (reminds me of The Wheel of Time that came to a standstill under the mulit-pov weight). At least a fourth of the novel could have been left out imo (most of the Shirley - Luis show).
The "illness" repetition doesn't help either. Caroline pining away works well, but then it happens to Shirley too (although it's fear for Rabies), and then occurs again for Roger (after being shot). Now, I understand CB wrote it during and after she lost 3 close kin in 1 year and that would certainly have influenced her. But for a plot it just becomes repetitious. Very soap-like. (unless I was reading CB's autobiography)

And finally the ending surprised me... it wasn't an omniscient 3rd person, but someone else who lives in the region. This person remains otherwise anonymous and from her conversation with Mary wasn't even living in the area when the story occurs. To suddenly insert this narrator makes no sense whatsoever to me, especially because the narrator herself was never mentioned before.

Will add my thoughts on the background themes and "morals" (which indeed seem missing) later

[sweetsunray]

Something very peculiar occurs: our narrator LIES.

She starts by assuring the reader it won't be a romance

"If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning,..."

However, this book seems to be full of happy matches, and romantic melodrama:
1) Caroline - Roger (and both are on the brink of death at some point in the story, one from a broken heart, the other from a shotwound + isolation from Caroline )
2) Shirley - Luis (Shirley fears a deadly disease, Luis fears she's going to marry someone else, she fears he has no love for her, etc)
and then several more mentioned at the end.

More, the book ends with, "The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!" It seems to stress the point that the story is but a frivolous exercise of the romantic mind, akin to soap series.

And yet, in a way CB also tells the truth... this book is not so "romantic" in the sense that the backdrop, the background is "industrial" instead of "nature", especially towards the end... Moore has a special dream and he fulfills it:

'The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse: the beautiful wild ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a paved street: there shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages on the lonely slopes: the rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm, broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill: and my mill, Caroline - my mill shall fill its present yard.'

'Horrible You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro' smoke atmosphere.'

There's no more jarring image to romanticism than a piece of the wild turned into a factory. And it's a very real image. Industrialisation has destroyed many a wild ground in any country in the world, and it wouldn't and couldn't be stopped. That's a very realistic conclusion, in contrast to the happily lived ever after marriage endings.

While the book introduces the industrialisation theme and shows how it alters social situations tremendously: people not living of the land anymore, but dependent on the hand force available in an industrialised factory that wants to produce cheaper and cheaper in order to compete. With industrialisation unemployment as social problem was born. However, the book ends with industry winning the issue too, despite Moore getting shot: the American market is open again, Moore acquires a fortune through this, expands his factory and supplies even more work at the end than there was unemployment at the start of the book.

There seems to be no moral ending whatsoever to any of the critted characters.
- Mr Helstone would have lost his ward Caroline as much as he would have lost his wife, if not for the deus-ex-machina: Caroline's mother.
- Moore's industrial dream is unchanged and even bigger at the end of the book than before, and it even bears fruit. And hadn't the American market opened up then his dream would have been a total nightmare. At least he meets with a dire situation, being shot. And yet there was little point in it morally wise, since he has already recognized his faults before he got shot. He was going to address Caroline, he fully recognized the unemployed having no other recourse, as much as he had no other.
- Shirley's uncle could never be hurt in the first place by Shirley's choice, as her fortune is her own and she doesn't even share his sirname.

In short noone ends up in ruin for their mistakes or errors.

There is much discussion about Rochester being a hero or not, but Moore is much crueler:
- he flirts with Caroline, yet has no plans whatsoever, and she nearly dies from her devotion to him
- he wishes to marry Shirley whom he doesn't love, nor understand for her money (mercenary)
- he refuses to work with the workers who are starving
- he has children work for him
- he has no qualms in destroying a whole patch of wild

Of course, any of his choices can be argued to be wise or to some benefit, and he's not a bad person in his heart... but he's ruthless and careless, and to an extent (personal acquaintances, society and environment) that reaches further than Rochester's carelessness ever was.

[Peripatetics]

Something very peculiar occurs: our narrator LIES.


No, Shirley is fiction and as fiction it can't either be true or a lie.
Charlotte is inconsistent. Shirley is not linear or logical. It is what it is.

[sweetsunray]

:p of course it is

Clearly though, CB created an unreliable narrator to us. It is curious to how she uses several times different narrator means in one story: omniscient 3rd person, to omniscient 1st person, over to subjective diary, and eventually revealing the omniscient 3rd person being someone anonymous who could never be omniscient, unless the person at the end is CB herself. And even if she is CB, she starts off very deceptively, declaring what the story will be about and it turning out to be much more than a sedate Monday.

I'm now left wondering what CB's aims were with this kind of narrating deception. I don't think it happened because of the difficulty in continuing the writing or as a mere exercise.

[Peripatetics]

[QUOTE=sweetsunray;735097]:
Clearly though, CB created an unreliable narrator to us. It is curious to how she uses several times different narrator means in one story: omniscient 3rd person, to omniscient 1st person, over to subjective diary, and eventually revealing the omniscient 3rd person being someone anonymous who could never be omniscient, unless the person at the end is CB herself. And even if she is CB, she starts off very deceptively, declaring what the story will be about and it turning out to be much more than a sedate Monday./QUOTE]

It's a wonderful reading. I agree, the narration is deceptive but it is very conscious of the effect that she is after. Amazing that it comes before JE and precedes Villette.
“I'm now left wondering what CB's aims were with this kind of narrating deception. “ So do I. Do you feel a connection, thematically , stylistically to Villette? General question.
Thank you for sharing.