Anti-Hierarchical Development in Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey

Abstract

This article offers an allegorical interpretation of the ostensibly realist elements of Anne Brontë’s 1847 novel Agnes Grey. Read non-allegorically, Agnes Grey appears to depict the triumph of the governess Agnes’s moral will over her desires that conflict with her duties, as occurs in the Bildungsroman. But the novel can also be seen as using Agnes’s evolving relationship with her pupils to consider the ideal way to prioritise and respond to the various impulses of the self and various members of a social community. The plot can then be seen as progressing towards the anti-hierarchical model of self and community that Brontë deems most ethical. This community largely corresponds to Talia Schaffer’s community of care.