65 pages • 2 hours read
Agnes Grey
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 18-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary
Rosalie is married and leaves for her honeymoon. Agnes forgives her for all her mistreatment. Mrs. Murray now focuses on Matilda and reproaches Agnes for not having managed to make Matilda more ladylike. Mrs. Murray suggests that a good governess expends all her energies on her pupils, thinking nothing of herself, and Agnes should exert herself more to reform Matilda’s behavior and tastes.
When she encounters Mr. Weston, Agnes strives to maintain a calm demeanor, though narrates, “I felt my heart throb so violently that I dreaded lest some outward signs of emotion should appear” (119). Mr. Weston does not seem devasted by Rosalie’s marriage. As they walk, Matilda’s dog kills a hare, and both Agnes and Mr. Weston disapprove. He gives bluebells to Agnes, and she admits to the reader that this encounter rekindles her hopes and wishes. But then, Agnes receives a letter from home saying that her father is near death. When she asks for permission to leave, Mrs. Murray wonders at her agitation since everyone must die sometime. Agnes rushes home to find that her father is dead.
Chapter 19 Summary
After her father’s funeral, the family discusses what to do. Agnes’s mother says that rather than live with Mary and her husband, she will open a boarding school, and Agnes can help her. Mrs. Grey receives a letter from her father saying that if she returns to her birth family and admits her marriage was a mistake, he will leave her and the girls a legacy. Mrs. Grey apologizes for depriving her daughters but declares she will never regret marrying their father, saying, “I was made for him, and he for me” (124). Agnes approves of her choice.
Chapter 20 Summary
Agnes and her mother rent a house in A— and acquire some pupils. Their neighbors express pity that her mother, once of such high station, should come to near penury, but Agnes thinks her mother is better off having employment.
Agnes says she will not dwell on her feelings as she says goodbye to her childhood home, the garden, the church, the green wood, “the old bare hills […] with the narrow vales between” (126). She returns to Horton Lodge to give her six weeks’ notice. She does not see Mr. Weston for the first two weeks, and Agnes sternly lectures herself:
have done with this nonsense: you have no ground for hope: dismiss, at once, these hurtful thoughts and foolish wishes from your mind and turn to your own duty, and the dull blank life that lies before you. You might have known such happiness was not for you (126).
When she finally encounters Mr. Weston, he asks her frankly how her mother is doing and what Agnes means to do now. He suggests she must be happy to leave Horton Lodge, for she once told him she could not live contentedly without at least one friend but has no hope of making friends here.
When they part, Agnes soliloquizes that she could be happy anywhere if Edward Weston were her one friend. But as the weeks pass, her hope ebbs, and she resolves to put aside her vain delusions and accept sober reality. On her final Sunday at church, they shake hands, and he asks whether it would matter to her if they met again. Agnes says she would be glad to see him again.
Chapter 21 Summary
Agnes joins her mother at their school in A—, where they have both boarders and day pupils. Agnes enjoys working with her mother. For a while, she holds the hope that Mr. Weston will try to get in touch with her but chastises herself for her fond dreams. When she hears nothing from him, Agnes decides to give up the hope that he cared for her and instead be content to cherish his memory. She finds that tranquility of mind helps restore her bodily health and vigor.
In June, she receives a letter from Rosalie inviting her to visit Ashby Park. Now that her honeymoon is over, Rosalie is restless for entertainment. She writes that she can show Agnes the house and the things she bought on her honeymoon. Rosalie has a child but is not much interested in rearing it. Agnes agrees to visit, hoping she might hear something of Mr. Weston.
Chapter 22 Summary
The visit to Ashby Park is strained. Rosalie does not treat Agnes as a guest who would take dinner with the family. Agnes is not impressed with the house, though Rosalie expects her to be awestruck. Agnes asks about the neighbors and learns that Mr. Hatfield married a wealthy spinster, and Mr. Weston has left the area. Rosalie complains that she does not get along with her mother-in-law and that her husband doesn’t do enough to amuse her; she believes “[i]t’s the husband’s part to please the wife, not hers to please him” (140). With little chance of learning anything more about Mr. Weston, Agnes contemplates a colorless future.
Chapter 23 Summary
As she and Rosalie walk in the park, Agnes meets Sir Thomas, who strikes her as disagreeable and sinister. Rosalie regrets that her mother rushed her into marriage and wishes she were single and still having fun. Agnes advises Rosalie to take comfort in doing her duty and taking care of her daughter, telling her, “The best way to enjoy yourself is to do what is right and hate nobody. The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how to live; and the earlier you become wise and good, the more of happiness you secure” (143). Agnes keeps her visit short, pitying Rosalie for her choices and her “false idea of happiness” (142).
Chapter 24 Summary
Agnes enjoys walking along the sea; she takes delight in it “at all times and seasons, but especially in the wild commotion of a rough sea-breeze, and in the brilliant freshness of a summer morning” (144). One morning, she rises early and walks along the seashore, feeling exhilarated by the craggy landscape, the blue sky, and the pure, fresh air. Hers are the first footprints in the sand after the tide.
As she walks, she encounters a terrier, her own Snap, and with him is Mr. Weston. Agnes is astonished to meet him, and as they walk together, he tells her he has gotten the living of F—, a village two miles away from A—. He says he has a house, an income, and “nothing but solitude to complain of, and nothing but a companion to wish for” (147). Agnes, embarrassed at her reaction to these words, says she is sure he will find a lady to his liking. He walks her home and says he will call to meet her mother the next day. Agnes is full of bliss and afire with hope.
Chapter 25 Summary
Mr. Weston meets her mother, and Agnes is gratified that they get along well. He visits often, and they begin to use one another’s given names. On the last day of her summer holiday, after a thunderstorm has cleared, he invites Agnes for a walk. They reach a small church on a hill at sunset. Edward declares that he has become acquainted with the ladies of the neighborhood, but “not one of them will suit [him] for a companion; in fact, there is only one person in the world that will: and that is [Agnes]” (152). He has arranged everything with her mother and asks Agnes if she loves him. She says yes.
The narrator concludes by saying that her diary goes a little further and sums up the rest. She married Edward, and they have three children whom Agnes declares “will want no good thing that a mother’s care can give” (153). They have an income sufficient for their needs, with enough to save for the future as well as give to charity. And while they have had trials, they bear them together and live their lives in accordance with Christian values and hope of salvation.
Chapters 18-25 Analysis
The final chapters of the novel resolve and reflect on its major themes of the situation of the governess, the value of Education and Maturity, the benefits of a morality based in Christianity, and the joys of Companionate Marriage and Romantic Love. As Rosalie’s unhappy marriage provides a foil to Agnes’s hopes and prospects, Mrs. Grey and Mrs. Murray provide two contrasting views on mothers and their influence on their children. In both cases, Victorian Middle-Class Morality reigns supreme, culminating in Mrs. Grey’s fulfilling work in the boarding school and Agnes’s happy marriage.
Just as she has matured by falling in love and dealing with the associated emotional turmoil, her father’s death provides a turning point in Agnes’s journey, moving her away from childhood and young adulthood. She is no longer dependent on her father or the Murrays. With her mother, Agnes will take charge of her own situation, designing her work and setting the schedule. She is no longer at the mercy of another’s whims, though this liberation is tempered by her unhappiness over not hearing from Mr. Weston. Here, Agnes again demonstrates middle-class morality, seeking fulfillment through honest work and caring for others. These virtues make her content and, therefore, primed for her ultimate happiness as Mr. Weston’s wife.
Mrs. Grey provides an example of a self-sufficient woman as she becomes her own provider and steps fully into a role as an educator. Her capability suggests that Mrs. Grey’s subordination to her husband was a choice made from love; she did not expect the marriage to be oriented toward only her wishes, as Rosalie does. For a second time, Mr. Grey rejects the support of her birth family to honor the relationship she had with her husband, choosing love over economic security. This emphasizes the novel’s promotion of Christian morality, as Mrs. Grey honors her marriage vows even after her husband dies.
Mrs. Murray once more provides an opportunity to critique the position of the governess. The notion that Agnes should sacrifice her personality and interests entirely to her charges doesn’t sit well with her, even with her self-sacrificing tendencies. While she has reflected on the power of association to shape a character, Agnes regards Mrs. Murray’s contention that pupils reflect their governess’s skill as absurd. Experience has shown Agnes that guidance by parents in a proper moral framework has the most power to shape a child’s behavior, but even then, education is unlikely to change a child’s natural tendencies. After two years, Agnes has still not managed to persuade Matilda not to like dogs, riding, or hunting—indeed, Agnes does not impact her pupils’ behavior at all. As a final condemnation of the governess’s position, Mrs. Murray dismisses Agnes’s concerns about her father’s health, saying that everyone dies. With this, the minimizing and degradation that Agnes has endured throughout the novel creep into dehumanization; ultimately, the employer views the governess as an object rather than a person.
Unlike Mrs. Murray, who insists on steering Matilda away from her interests and natural tendencies so she might be seen as a more desirable marriage partner, Mrs. Grey encourages Agnes to become fully herself. While she is willing to earn her keep, Agnes’s goals have moved toward marriage. Her embarrassment about admitting these hopes, however, takes her self-restraint to the point of self-denial. Where her emotions are strongest, Agnes is most severe with herself, as when she lectures herself for wanting happiness that cannot be hers.
As a reward for her strong moral principles and self-mastery, Agnes gains the partner of her dreams and finds her fullest self-realization through Companionate Marriage and Romantic Love—a prevailing theme of romance novels from their origins to today. She earns true love by first adhering, as she shows in her lecture to Rosalie, to Christian beliefs about duty, usefulness, caring for others, and becoming “wise and good.” It is implied that if Mr. Weston had disappeared from her life forever, Agnes would still have found a way to be content. But he does appear, heralded both by the welcoming landscape and Agnes’s dog, symbols of Agnes’s inner life and kind nature. Having gained a living and thus the income to support a wife, Mr. Weston can now declare his intentions, but he takes care to earn Mrs. Grey’s approval first, finalizing the marriage as not only based on romantic love but on the family’s approval. The narrator returns to the narrative device of the diary at the end to summarize the conclusion, once more refraining from sharing too much detail—another form of excess of which Agnes disapproves.
Unlike Rosalie, who takes pride in the material comforts of her marriage rather than her family, Agnes is content with a modest economic station, and she strives to be of service to her family, particularly in educating her children. Agnes’s coming of age leads her firmly into the domestic sphere, where the virtues of modesty, discipline, and care for others lead to satisfaction and comfort. Agnes’s happiness rests on a combination of partnership with a fitting mate, household economy, nurturing motherhood, and belief in Christian doctrine—a Victorian happily ever after.
Unlock all 65 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,200+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
