The Storms of Villette Essay -- Storms of Villette Essays

The Storms of Villette In Charlotte Bronts novel, Villette, Bront strategically uses the brutality and magnitude of thunder storms to propel her narrator, Lucy Snowe, into unchartered social territories of friendship and love. In her most roundabout act, the fate of Lucy and M. Paul is clouded at the end of the novel by an ominous and malicious storm. By examining Bronts manipulation of two earlier storms which echo the background and foreboding of this last storm -- the storm Lucy encounters during her sickness after visiting confession and the storm which detains her at Madame Walravens abode -- the reader is provided with a way in which to understand the vague and despairing ending. A long vacation from school precedes the source storm and it is during this vacation, where Lucy is left predominately alone, that the reader feels the full depth and emptiness of Lucys solitude. She says, just all this was nothing I too felt those autumn suns and saw those harvest moons, and I almost wished to be covered in with earth and turf, recently out of their influence for I could not live in their light, nor make them comrades, nor yield them affection (230). After a resulting fit of delirium and depression, Lucy attends confession at a Catholic church solely in order to receive kind words from another human being. It is at this low, after her leaving the church, that the first storm takes shape. Caught without shelter, Lucy falls victim to the storms brute force. She remembers that she ...bent her head to meet it, but it beat her back (236). However, though appearing destructive, this overpowering force serves to deliver her into the men of Dr. John and his mother, Mrs. Bretton, Lucys godmother fro... .... We have seen what good can obtain from a destructive tempest for Lucy and in such fashion, we can only assume that this good will come again. Lucy will be further united to her dear M. Paul and to herself. Bront has outlined this as the form to be followe d and as readers, we must optimistically obey. Sources Cited and Consulted Books Allott, Miriam. Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre and Villette. MacMilan, capital of the United Kingdom 1973 Bront, Charlotte. Villette. London Penguin, 1985. Nestor, Pauline. Critical Studies of Jane Eyre. St. Martins Press, NY 1992. Websites Cody, David and Everett, Glenn et al. The Victorian Web. Brown University 1993 http//65.107.211.206/victov.html Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Litrix Reading Room 1999. http//www.litrix.com/janeeyre/janee001.htm1