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Example
Two: Storms of Providence
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Thunderstorms
in Bronte's Villette
In
Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Villette, Brontë
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 devious act, the
fate of Lucy and M. Paul is clouded at the end of the novel by
an ominous and malicious storm. By examining Brontë’s
manipulation of two earlier storms which echo the scope 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 first storm and it is
during this vacation, where Lucy is left predominately alone,
that the reader feels the full depth and emptiness of Lucy’s
solitude. She says, “But 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, deep 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 storm’s 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 hands of Dr.
John and his mother, Mrs. Bretton, Lucy’s godmother from
youth. Mrs. Bretton’s subsequent revelation of Lucy’s
identity opens the door to a much needed intimacy for Lucy.
Because of this new companionship, Lucy is able to say that she
“…had been satisfied with friendship -- with its calm
comfort and modest hope” (304). Without Lucy’s time spent at
La Terrasse because of falling victim to the storm, this
intimacy may never have been reclaimed and the check to Lucy’s
loneliness may never have occurred.
After
many months a second tempestuous storm ravages Villette and
draws Lucy into another intimate, yet unexpected bond.
Throughout most of the novel, Lucy finds M. Paul to be moody and
unreasonable. She states, even after their friendship appears
tighter following the delivery of her watchguard to him, “In a
shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great
Emperor [Napoleon]” (436). It is not until Pčre Silas details
M. Paul’s history to Lucy that she can begin to truly
understand M Paul’s peculiar character. After this
explanation, Lucy’s view of M. Paul is transformed. She
comments, “They showed me how good he was; they made of my
dear little man a stainless little hero…What means had I,
before this day, of being certain whether he could love at all
or not? I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about
him certain tendernesses, fitfulnesses… this
was all I had seen…And they, Pčre Silas and Modeste
Maria Beck…opened up the adytum of his heart”
However,
Lucy would have easily escaped without the knowledge of M. Paul’s
humanity had a large storm not occurred detaining her at the
home of Madame Walravens. Lucy narrates, “Down washed the
rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a while ago,
had now through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, as if
in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a
shower, I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout” (482).
Consequently, the old priest, Silas, finds Lucy waiting out the
storm on the staircase and invites her back into the house. From
him and through the painting on the wall of Justine Marie, M.
Paul’s lost love, Lucy learns of M. Paul’s tragic history.
Again, the occurrence of a violent and seemingly victimizing
storm transforms Lucy’s life by leading her into a state of
deeper intimation with a man she may otherwise never truly have
known.
Therefore,
by examining the similar consequences of the ravaging storms
mentioned in the novel before the storm which shrouds the fate
of Lucy and M. Paul, one can see that Brontë may have created a
precedent for how the reader should understand the meaning of
such a storm in the context of her novel. In both examples, the
storms have appeared dreadful and limiting to Lucy, pushing her
down or keeping her in from the move she wished to make. Yet
neither have dreadful or limiting consequences. Instead, they
lead Lucy into closer unions, with others as well as with
herself. The storms lead her to people with whom she will come
to love. They allow her to release her own stormy passions and
to give them life. As Lucy says of M. Paul after falling in love
with his true character, “He was roused, and I loved him in
his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt” (581).
Hence, when Lucy speaks of the last storm with words such as,
“Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his
perfect work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder --
the tremor of whose plumes was storm”, the description seems
to imply a violent and ominous outcome (596). What good can come
from destruction? Yet, notice the words “angel” and “perfect”
in this last quote as well. We have seen ‘what good’ can
come 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. Brontë has
outlined this as the form to be followed and as readers, we must
optimistically obey.
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