The synopsis is fairly simple: wealthy heiress Shirley Keeldar takes up residence in her family home and quickly becomes friends with the rector's niece, Caroline Helstone. These two girls are passionately in love, unbeknownst to them and the rest of the world, with brothers. Shirley is in love with the elder brother, Louis Moore, who was her tutor. Caroline is in love with the younger brother, Robert Moore, the owner of a textile mill. When Shirley arrives, everyone assumes that she will marry Robert -- or one of the other countless suitors -- but she remains single. Both women struggle with loving men who cannot love them in return: Robert cannot love Caroline because he is financially unable to marry (except for money) because of trade restrictions hampering his business, and Louis cannot love Shirley because they are not equals in terms of their fortunes. It became obvious to me early on that both heroines would receive their happy endings, but the journey they took to get there and the depth of this novel is where its true beauty lies.
In a nutshell, Shirley is the story of two women trying to find a way to be with the men they love in the midst of war, class struggles, and family drama. Sounds almost like a Jane Austen novel, doesn't it? In a way, this novel and Austen's novels have a good deal in common. Shirley is Charlotte Brontë's only historical novel; it takes place in 1811, the same year that Sense and Sensibility was published. But once you get past the time period, sensible heroines, and witty characters, the differences become evident. One of the most interesting things about classics which are historical novels is that you get a feel for how that era was viewed during the author's life. In this case, we see how a Yorkshire woman writing in 1849 viewed the Napoleonic Wars and the industrial movement of the early 19th Century.
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| The good life: reading, drinking bourbon, and watching my husband work on the bike. |
To me, the most breathtaking part of this novel is the history. Shirley takes place in a period of growing industrialization stunted by the war with Napoleon, and the subsequent riots within the working class: the Luddite movement. As the novel begins, Robert Moore struggles to keep his textile mill afloat. He seeks to combat this industrial depression by bringing in new machinery that will cut costs, allowing his mill to work more efficiently. The workers, many of whom are dismissed, strike back at Moore, and this struggle between employer and employees set the stage for the rest of the novel. While the Luddite movement was an integral part of domestic politics during the 1810's, it is easy to see where Charlotte is getting her inspiration. One of the quintessential characteristics of the early Victorian Era (and really, the 19th century throughout the Western world) is the struggles and consequential rise of the working class. The year before this novel was published, The Communist Manifesto sparked a revolution with its epicenter in Germany, rippling throughout the entire world. At the same time, Charles Dickens had been discussing the trials of the lower classes beginning in the 1830s until his death in 1870, and Elizabeth Gaskell, who is perhaps the most famous female British author devoted to exposing the working classes struggles, published her first novel just a year before Charlotte published Shirley. So Charlotte Brontë certainly had plenty of inspiration for a historical novel illuminating working class struggles.
Other characteristics of the novel also illuminate important influences on her life. The clergy play a huge role in the direction of the novel, particularly in the form of Caroline's controlling uncle/guardian. Charlotte delves into complex theological matters (a little too deep at times -- it's almost as overwhelming as Tolstoy with his 19th century Russian farming techniques) concerning both the Anglican church and the dissenters, which suggests that her clergyman father discussed theology with his daughters. She generally portrays the clergy favorably but, similar to Austen and her various fictional clergymen, still discusses their foibles at length. But probably the greatest inspiration developed during arguably two of the hardest years in Charlotte's life: 1848 and 1849. Charlotte was the middle of six children. Two sisters died as children, and the other three, Emily, Anne, and the only boy, Branwell, died between September of 1848 and May of 1849. With this knowledge, the characters of Shirley and Caroline are even more appealing to the reader as they are a direct reflection of the grief Charlotte felt. The character of Shirley is based on Emily, and when Caroline becomes so ill that she nearly dies, Charlotte writes the blissful, romantic ending that her sisters would never have.
Charlotte's passion and dedication for the working class and the clergy are immediately evident to the reader, but the real gems are the characters. The heroines are two vastly different women with different needs and desires, and yet they are in virtually the same situation. Shirley's fierceness and philanthropy are reminiscent of Emma Woodhouse and Bathsheba Everdene. She is wealthy, and uses that wealth for good, but she needs a guiding force in her life -- just like these two women received in George Knightley and Gabriel Oak. Caroline, on the other hand, is timid and shy, yet loyal and persistent when it comes to the man that she loves, much like Fanny Price and Amy Dorritt. Nothing would deter these women from loving Edmund Bertram and Arthur Clennam, no matter their vices or foolish mistakes, and Caroline was no different. No matter how cruelly Robert Moore treated her, she knew her own heart and would not be persuaded otherwise. And yet, despite Caroline's sweetness and Shirley's wealth, they cannot achieve happiness on their own.
But despite Shirley's fierceness and Caroline's loyalty, these two heroines offer a striking contrast with Jane Eyre. Over the years, the Brontë sisters have become an icon for feminists. Jane Eyre certainly fits the feminist agenda as she declares: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you." (Jane Eyre, Chapter 23) But the characters of Shirley and Caroline are the complete opposite. In fact, the last two chapters of this book discuss how these women are eternally tethered and domesticated to the men that they love -- whether their love is returned or not. Louis Moore is the "keeper" of Shirley, the one who tames her wildness. She says to him:
"Mr. Moore," said she, looking up with a sweet, open, earnest countenance, "teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property, but I ask you to share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. Your judgment is well balanced, your heart is kind, your principles are sound. I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe you are conscientious. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!" (Shirley, Chapter 36)In the following chapter, Shirley is seen submitting to her husband completely:
He was virtually master of Fieldhead weeks before he became so nominally—the least presumptuous, the kindest master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders... In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark she made a year afterwards proved that she partly also acted on system. "Louis," she said, "would never have learned to rule if she had not ceased to govern. The incapacity of the sovereign had developed the powers of the premier." (Shirley, Chapter 37)What a blow to modern feminism! Surely, she can't mean that she "abdicated without a word or a struggle." In a world that condemns a woman sharing her wealth and power to her husband is scoffed, feminist icon Charlotte Brontë's heroine submits everything to her husband. Caroline is different in that she is poor with nothing to give, but she still submits everything to Robert. But I don't think this was Charlotte's point. These two women would not submit to just any man. Shirley will not submit to her tyrannical uncle's demand that she marries one of the wealthy suitors, but she does submit to the man who loves her ardently, tenderly, and wholly. She submits to the man who is worthy of her. Caroline submits to her uncle because he is her guardian, but she would become a governess before marrying and submitting to a man who was not her equal.
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| My adorable, late-night reading buddies. |
Shirley does have a few flaws which are more a flaw of the time and modern literary expectations than a flaw of the novel. For one, Charlotte Brontë loved switching for entire pages into French. Since Robert, Louis, and Hortense Moore were all half-Flemish, they frequently switch between French and English in their dialogue. In 19th Century England, this would not have been a problem as French was commonly taught to the gentry. It was difficult to follow when it would switch back and forth between the two languages without giving a translation.
The other flaw is that the climax is so drawn out that it feels like something was missing at the end. It was a very difficult book to get into for the first half, but the second half flew by because it was filled with excitement. The climax spans almost 100 pages of the novel (out of 300) where you feel it must get resolved soon but the characters simply will not communicate their emotions. I think this is less of a flaw of the novel and more of modern expectations for a spectacular ending with explosions and passionate declarations of love. Technically this novel had plenty of both of those things, but I suppose it was a simpler ending than I expected from such a complex novel.
But that's how this different, and why it is such a splendid work of art. The story flows better than many of its contemporary novels. Charlotte paints a realistic picture instead of trying to make it overly romantic. It isn't Gothic like Wuthering Heights, or dreary like Dickens, or pastoral like Hardy -- but it does incorporate many of these elements into the story to give you a realistic picture. And it is truly a beautiful picture filled with love and loss and longing. Charlotte was able to weave a story that kept the magic of the Moors while adding a painfully realistic romance and a historically accurate fictionalization of the early labor movement. There are so many more details in this novel which I did not discuss, but all of them add volume and character to this already brilliant novel. Why this novel was not more popular, I will never know. But what I do know is that it rekindled my love of the Brontë sisters' works.
And feminists, next time you claim an authoress as your poster child, make sure she doesn't have any skeletons in her closet -- like Shirley.
