Shirley (novel)
Encyclopedia
Shirley is an 1849 social novel
by the English
novelist Charlotte Brontë
. It was Brontë's second published novel after Jane Eyre
(originally published under Brontë's pseudonym Currer Bell). The novel is set in Yorkshire
in the period 1811–12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars
and the War of 1812
. The novel is set against a backdrop of the Luddite
uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry.
The novel's popularity led to Shirley
becoming a woman's name. The title character was given the name that her father had intended to give a son. Before the publication of the novel, Shirley was an uncommon - but distinctly male - name and would have been an unusual name for a woman. Today it is regarded as a distinctly female name and an uncommon male name.
died in September 1848, and her sister Emily
fell ill and died in December. Brontë resumed writing, but then her only remaining sibling, her sister Anne
, became ill and died in May 1849.
It is believed that the character of Caroline Helstone was loosely based on Anne and it has been speculated that Brontë originally planned to kill off Caroline but changed her mind because of her family tragedies. The maiden name of Mrs. Pryor (Caroline Helstone's mother) is Agnes Grey
, the name of the main character in Anne's first novel. She was based on Margaret Wooler, the principal of Roe Head School, which Brontë attended as both student and teacher.
manor house Oakwell Hall
.
As the novel opens, Robert awaits delivery of new labor-saving machinery to the mill. The new machinery will let him lay off additional employees. Robert, with some friends, watches all night, but the machinery is destroyed on the way by angry millworkers. Robert's business difficulties continue, due in part to the continuing labor unrest, but even more so to the Napoleonic Wars and the accompanying Orders in Council which forbid British merchants from trading in American markets.
Robert is very close to Caroline Helstone, who comes to his house to learn French from his sister. Caroline worships Robert and he likes her too. Caroline’s father is dead and her mother had abandoned her, leaving her to be brought up by her uncle, the local parson, Rev. Helstone. Caroline is penniless, and this leads Robert to keep his distance from her, since he cannot afford to marry for pleasure or love. He has to marry for money if he is to get his mill going again.
Caroline realizes that Robert is growing increasingly distant and withdraws into herself. Her uncle does not sympathise with her ‘fancies’, and she has no money of her own, so she cannot leave the place, which is what she longs to do. She suggests taking up the job of a governess but her uncle dismisses it and assures her that she need not work.
Caroline cheers up a great deal, however, when she meets Shirley. Shirley is a landowner, an independent heiress whose parents are dead and who lives with Mrs. Pryor, an old governess. Shirley is lively, cheerful, full of ideas about how to use her money and how to help people, and very interested in business concerns. Caroline and Shirley soon become very close friends. They both dislike social hypocrisy and wish they could so something significant with their lives. As Caroline gets closer to Shirley, she notices that Shirley and Robert get along very well, which makes her think that they would end up marrying each other. Shirley likes Robert, is very interested in his work, and is concerned about him and the threats he gets from laid-off millworkers. Both good and bad former employees are depicted. Some passages show the real suffering of those who were honest workers and can no longer find good employment; other passages show how some people use losing their jobs as an excuse to get drunk, fight with their previous employers, and incite other people to violence. Shirley uses her money to help the poorest of the lot, but she is also motivated by the desire to prevent any attack on Robert, a motive that makes Caroline both happy and unhappy.
One night, Caroline and Shirley conclude from the behaviour of Robert and others that an attack is imminent. They go the mill together to warn Robert. They come too late and have to hide near the mill. But Robert is already prepared and he mounts a counter-attack. He defeats the attackers and gets the ring leaders arrested, the whole encounter being witnessed by Shirley and Caroline from their hiding place.
After this incident, the whole neighbourhood is convinced that Robert and Shirley shall wed. The anticipation of this causes Caroline to fall sick. Mrs. Pryor comes to look after her, and realizes that Caroline is pining away. Every Tuesday, Caroline sits by the window sill, no matter how weak or tired, to catch a glimpse of Robert on his way to the market. Mrs. Pryor makes it a point to see what it is that Caroline looks out for. She learns the cause of Caroline’s sorrow but is helpless; she continues her vigil in the sick room even as Caroline worsens daily.
Robert leaves for London without any concrete reason. Caroline has lost even the weekly glimpse of him, and she feels that she has ‘nothing left to live for’ since there is no one who cares whether she lives or dies. Mrs. Pryor then reveals to Caroline that she is Caroline's mother. She had abandoned her because Caroline looked exactly like her father - the husband who tortured Mrs. Pryor and made her life miserable. She had little money; when her brother-in-law offered to bring up the child, she accepted it, took up a family name of Pryor and went off to become a governess. Caroline now has a reason to live - her ‘mamma’. She begins to recover slowly, since she knows that she can go and live with her mother.
Shirley's uncle and aunt come to visit her. The uncle joins Shirley in her office work (administering her land and investments). They bring with them their daughters, their son, and their son's tutor. He is Louis Moore, Robert’s younger brother, who had taught Shirley when she was younger. Caroline is puzzled by Shirley’s behaviour towards Louis - the friendly girl who treats her servants as her own family is always haughty and formal with Louis and never seems to forget that he is a lowly tutor with no money of his own. Two men fall in love with Shirley and woo her, but she refuses both because she does not love them. Her uncle is surprised by this behaviour and wants her to marry someone respectable soon. A viscount, the most prominent nobleman of the district, falls in love with Shirley. She likes him too, though she does not respect him and does not want to marry him. The neighbourhood, however, is certain that she will not refuse so favourable a match. The relationship between Shirley and Louis, meanwhile, remains ambivalent. There are days when Louis can, with the authority of an old teacher, ask Shirley to come to the schoolroom and recite the French pieces that she learnt earlier. On other days, Shirley completely ignores Louis, not even speaking to him once though they have breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same table. At the same time, when Shirley is upset, the only one she can confide in is Louis. When a supposed 'mad dog
’ bites Shirley and makes her think that she is likely to die early, no one can make her reveal what it is that makes her so sad. It is only Louis who gets the whole incident out of her, and Shirley makes him promise that if she is dying of rabies, and to be put to death because of the terrible suffering in the last stages of the disease, it will be his hand that delivers that final injection.
Robert returns one dark night, first stopping at the market and then returning to his home with a friend. The friend tells him that it is widely speculated that Shirley is to marry a rich man and asks him why he left when it seemed so sure that Shirley loved him and would have married him. Robert replies that he had assumed the same, and that he had proposed to Shirley before he left. But Shirley had at first laughed, thinking that he was not serious, and cried when she discovered that he was. She had told him that she knew that he did not love her, that he asked for her hand not for her but for her money and this decreased her respect for him. When Robert had argued that Shirley had shown concern for him, been open with him from the very beginning and discussed his business matters at length with him, she had said that she had esteem and affection for him, but not love and now even that esteem and affection were in danger. Robert walked away from that room filled with a sense of humiliation, even as he knew that she was right - that he had ignored his affection for Caroline and sought out Shirley primarily for her money. This self-disgust drove Robert away to London and he realized there that restoring the family name was not as important as self-respect and he had returned home, determined to close the mill if he had to, and go away to Canada and work hard and make his fortune. Just as Robert finishes his narration, his friend hears a gunshot and Robert falls from his horse - the laid-off workers are finally avenged.
The friend takes Robert to his own home and looks after him, and after a turn for the worse, Robert slowly gets better. A visit from Caroline revives him but she has to come secretly, hiding from her uncle and his friend and his family. Robert soon moves back to his house and persuades his sister that the very thing the house needs to cheer it up is a visit by Caroline. Robert asks for Caroline’s forgiveness and tries to tell her what had happened with Shirley, but she stops him and tells him that she has forgiven him and that she got some idea from Shirley and does not need to know any more. She also predicts that Shirley is in love too, and that she is not ‘master of her own heart’.
When Shirley refuses the viscount’s offer of marriage, her uncle is enraged and has a fight with her. He then decides to leave Stillborough. This means that Louis will have to leave too, which emboldens him enough to make his declaration – he proposes to Shirley, despite the difference in their relative situations. Shirley agrees to marry him, though she has moments of indecision and panic at the thought of giving up her independence.
The novel ends with Caroline and Shirley marrying the two brothers, Robert and Louis, respectively.
, Brontë returned to first-person narration.
Other characters in the novel include:
Social novel
Social novels, also known as social problem novels or realist fiction, originated in the 18th century but gained a popular following in the 19th century with the rise of the Victorian Era and in many ways was a reaction to industrialization, social, political and economic issues and movements...
by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
novelist Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
. It was Brontë's second published novel after Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
(originally published under Brontë's pseudonym Currer Bell). The novel is set in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
in the period 1811–12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
and the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
. The novel is set against a backdrop of the Luddite
Luddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry.
The novel's popularity led to Shirley
Shirley (name)
- Given name :Before the publication of the novel Shirley by Charlotte Brontë in 1849 Shirley was an uncommon, but distinctly male name and would have been a very unusual name for a woman...
becoming a woman's name. The title character was given the name that her father had intended to give a son. Before the publication of the novel, Shirley was an uncommon - but distinctly male - name and would have been an unusual name for a woman. Today it is regarded as a distinctly female name and an uncommon male name.
Background
While Brontë was writing Shirley, three of her siblings died. Her brother BranwellBranwell Brontë
Patrick Branwell Brontë was a painter and poet, the only son of the Brontë family, and the brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.-Youth:...
died in September 1848, and her sister Emily
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
fell ill and died in December. Brontë resumed writing, but then her only remaining sibling, her sister Anne
Anne Brontë
Anne Brontë was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.The daughter of a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England, Anne Brontë lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. For a couple of years she went to a...
, became ill and died in May 1849.
It is believed that the character of Caroline Helstone was loosely based on Anne and it has been speculated that Brontë originally planned to kill off Caroline but changed her mind because of her family tragedies. The maiden name of Mrs. Pryor (Caroline Helstone's mother) is Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë, first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works in several bourgeois families. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the...
, the name of the main character in Anne's first novel. She was based on Margaret Wooler, the principal of Roe Head School, which Brontë attended as both student and teacher.
Locations
The novel is set in a fictional part of Yorkshire, comprising the parishes of Briarfield and Nunneley. The main town of the district is Stillborough. The Keeldar family home in Shirley is called Fieldhead. Charlotte Brontë based Fieldhead on the ElizabethanElizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
manor house Oakwell Hall
Oakwell Hall
Oakwell Hall is an Elizabethan Manor House located in the village of Birstall, West Yorkshire, England and set in period gardens surrounded by of country park....
.
Plot
Robert Moore is a mill owner noted for apparent ruthlessness toward his employees - more than any other mill owner in town. He has laid off many of them, apparently indifferent to their resulting poverty. But in fact he has no choice, since the mill is deep in debt. The mill was inefficiently run by his late father and is already mortgaged. His elder brother became a private tutor, leaving Robert to restore the mill to profitability. He is determined to restore his family's honour and fortune.As the novel opens, Robert awaits delivery of new labor-saving machinery to the mill. The new machinery will let him lay off additional employees. Robert, with some friends, watches all night, but the machinery is destroyed on the way by angry millworkers. Robert's business difficulties continue, due in part to the continuing labor unrest, but even more so to the Napoleonic Wars and the accompanying Orders in Council which forbid British merchants from trading in American markets.
Robert is very close to Caroline Helstone, who comes to his house to learn French from his sister. Caroline worships Robert and he likes her too. Caroline’s father is dead and her mother had abandoned her, leaving her to be brought up by her uncle, the local parson, Rev. Helstone. Caroline is penniless, and this leads Robert to keep his distance from her, since he cannot afford to marry for pleasure or love. He has to marry for money if he is to get his mill going again.
Caroline realizes that Robert is growing increasingly distant and withdraws into herself. Her uncle does not sympathise with her ‘fancies’, and she has no money of her own, so she cannot leave the place, which is what she longs to do. She suggests taking up the job of a governess but her uncle dismisses it and assures her that she need not work.
Caroline cheers up a great deal, however, when she meets Shirley. Shirley is a landowner, an independent heiress whose parents are dead and who lives with Mrs. Pryor, an old governess. Shirley is lively, cheerful, full of ideas about how to use her money and how to help people, and very interested in business concerns. Caroline and Shirley soon become very close friends. They both dislike social hypocrisy and wish they could so something significant with their lives. As Caroline gets closer to Shirley, she notices that Shirley and Robert get along very well, which makes her think that they would end up marrying each other. Shirley likes Robert, is very interested in his work, and is concerned about him and the threats he gets from laid-off millworkers. Both good and bad former employees are depicted. Some passages show the real suffering of those who were honest workers and can no longer find good employment; other passages show how some people use losing their jobs as an excuse to get drunk, fight with their previous employers, and incite other people to violence. Shirley uses her money to help the poorest of the lot, but she is also motivated by the desire to prevent any attack on Robert, a motive that makes Caroline both happy and unhappy.
One night, Caroline and Shirley conclude from the behaviour of Robert and others that an attack is imminent. They go the mill together to warn Robert. They come too late and have to hide near the mill. But Robert is already prepared and he mounts a counter-attack. He defeats the attackers and gets the ring leaders arrested, the whole encounter being witnessed by Shirley and Caroline from their hiding place.
After this incident, the whole neighbourhood is convinced that Robert and Shirley shall wed. The anticipation of this causes Caroline to fall sick. Mrs. Pryor comes to look after her, and realizes that Caroline is pining away. Every Tuesday, Caroline sits by the window sill, no matter how weak or tired, to catch a glimpse of Robert on his way to the market. Mrs. Pryor makes it a point to see what it is that Caroline looks out for. She learns the cause of Caroline’s sorrow but is helpless; she continues her vigil in the sick room even as Caroline worsens daily.
Robert leaves for London without any concrete reason. Caroline has lost even the weekly glimpse of him, and she feels that she has ‘nothing left to live for’ since there is no one who cares whether she lives or dies. Mrs. Pryor then reveals to Caroline that she is Caroline's mother. She had abandoned her because Caroline looked exactly like her father - the husband who tortured Mrs. Pryor and made her life miserable. She had little money; when her brother-in-law offered to bring up the child, she accepted it, took up a family name of Pryor and went off to become a governess. Caroline now has a reason to live - her ‘mamma’. She begins to recover slowly, since she knows that she can go and live with her mother.
Shirley's uncle and aunt come to visit her. The uncle joins Shirley in her office work (administering her land and investments). They bring with them their daughters, their son, and their son's tutor. He is Louis Moore, Robert’s younger brother, who had taught Shirley when she was younger. Caroline is puzzled by Shirley’s behaviour towards Louis - the friendly girl who treats her servants as her own family is always haughty and formal with Louis and never seems to forget that he is a lowly tutor with no money of his own. Two men fall in love with Shirley and woo her, but she refuses both because she does not love them. Her uncle is surprised by this behaviour and wants her to marry someone respectable soon. A viscount, the most prominent nobleman of the district, falls in love with Shirley. She likes him too, though she does not respect him and does not want to marry him. The neighbourhood, however, is certain that she will not refuse so favourable a match. The relationship between Shirley and Louis, meanwhile, remains ambivalent. There are days when Louis can, with the authority of an old teacher, ask Shirley to come to the schoolroom and recite the French pieces that she learnt earlier. On other days, Shirley completely ignores Louis, not even speaking to him once though they have breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same table. At the same time, when Shirley is upset, the only one she can confide in is Louis. When a supposed 'mad dog
Rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
’ bites Shirley and makes her think that she is likely to die early, no one can make her reveal what it is that makes her so sad. It is only Louis who gets the whole incident out of her, and Shirley makes him promise that if she is dying of rabies, and to be put to death because of the terrible suffering in the last stages of the disease, it will be his hand that delivers that final injection.
Robert returns one dark night, first stopping at the market and then returning to his home with a friend. The friend tells him that it is widely speculated that Shirley is to marry a rich man and asks him why he left when it seemed so sure that Shirley loved him and would have married him. Robert replies that he had assumed the same, and that he had proposed to Shirley before he left. But Shirley had at first laughed, thinking that he was not serious, and cried when she discovered that he was. She had told him that she knew that he did not love her, that he asked for her hand not for her but for her money and this decreased her respect for him. When Robert had argued that Shirley had shown concern for him, been open with him from the very beginning and discussed his business matters at length with him, she had said that she had esteem and affection for him, but not love and now even that esteem and affection were in danger. Robert walked away from that room filled with a sense of humiliation, even as he knew that she was right - that he had ignored his affection for Caroline and sought out Shirley primarily for her money. This self-disgust drove Robert away to London and he realized there that restoring the family name was not as important as self-respect and he had returned home, determined to close the mill if he had to, and go away to Canada and work hard and make his fortune. Just as Robert finishes his narration, his friend hears a gunshot and Robert falls from his horse - the laid-off workers are finally avenged.
The friend takes Robert to his own home and looks after him, and after a turn for the worse, Robert slowly gets better. A visit from Caroline revives him but she has to come secretly, hiding from her uncle and his friend and his family. Robert soon moves back to his house and persuades his sister that the very thing the house needs to cheer it up is a visit by Caroline. Robert asks for Caroline’s forgiveness and tries to tell her what had happened with Shirley, but she stops him and tells him that she has forgiven him and that she got some idea from Shirley and does not need to know any more. She also predicts that Shirley is in love too, and that she is not ‘master of her own heart’.
When Shirley refuses the viscount’s offer of marriage, her uncle is enraged and has a fight with her. He then decides to leave Stillborough. This means that Louis will have to leave too, which emboldens him enough to make his declaration – he proposes to Shirley, despite the difference in their relative situations. Shirley agrees to marry him, though she has moments of indecision and panic at the thought of giving up her independence.
The novel ends with Caroline and Shirley marrying the two brothers, Robert and Louis, respectively.
Style
Unlike Jane Eyre, which is written in the first person and narrated by the title character, Shirley is narrated by an omniscient but unnamed third-person narrator. For her third novel VilletteVillette (novel)
Villette is a novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1853. After an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance...
, Brontë returned to first-person narration.
Themes
The major themes in Shirley are the explicit historical theme of industrial unrest in early nineteenth century Britain; and the implicit theme of the role of women in society.Adaptations
The novel has only been filmed once to date, in 1922. The silent adaptation was done by A. V. Bramble, and Carlotta Breese starred as the title character Shirley.Critical reception
Coming soon after Jane Eyre, which was extremely successful, Shirley originally received a muted reception from critics.Characters
The four central characters are studies in contrast: the two friends Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, and their loves, the brothers Robert and Louis Gérard Moore.- Robert Gérard Moore - An industrialist whose textile mill is idle because of the war. Perceived as an outsider because he comes from Antwerp, even though he is a cousin of Caroline. During the novel, Robert Moore installs new labor-saving machinery in his mill and becomes the target of Luddite attacks.
- Louis Gérard Moore - Robert's brother, working as a tutor for Shirley's uncle.
- Caroline Helstone - A timid and uncertain, but also wise and capable young woman, the niece of Reverend Helstone and best friend of Shirley.
- Shirley Keeldar - An orphaned heiress to a fortune. A headstrong, independent and determined young woman.
Other characters in the novel include:
- Rev Matthewston Helstone - Caroline's uncle. A fierce man, who is not cruel, but still shows little affection for his niece. Marriage has made him distrustful of women in general.
- Hortense Gérard Moore - Robert and Louis's sister.
- Hiram Yorke - A local landowner.
- Joe Scott - Robert Moore's foreman at the mill.
- Mrs. Pryor - Shirley's timid but wise governess, who moves to Fieldhead together with Shirley. She eventually turns out to be Caroline's long-lost mother.
- The three Curates of the three parishes - The brutish Irishman Peter Malone, the CockneyCockneyThe term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
Joseph Donne, and the amiable Davy Sweeting.