Shirley

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1849

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-18

Chapters 19-25

Chapters 26-30

Chapters 31-37

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Themes

A Woman’s Place

Shirley is regarded as the novel that most strongly reflects Charlotte Brontë’s proto-feminist thinking. Its characters actively express and debate disparate views on what women should and shouldn’t be able to do, particularly in regard to education and labor. The novel’s two heroines, Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, both have men in their lives who attempt to control them to different degrees. Shirley, who has just come of age and obtained independent wealth at the beginning of the novel, is able to ignore the demands of the men around her, such as her uncle who attempts to force her into marriage. Caroline, however, does not share Shirley’s wealthy status and thus is under the control of her uncle, and she fears that she will be a burden on him for the rest of her life. From the beginning of the novel, Caroline reflects that there are three paths in life granted to a woman of her social status: marriage, becoming a governess, or becoming an “old maid.” The narrator notes that Caroline “would wish nature had made her a boy instead of a girl” (76) so she may have an occupation rather than remaining dependent and worrying about what she will do with the rest of her life. Shirley and Caroline bond over their shared struggles as women, despite their divide in wealth and experience, sharing the idea Shirley professes that “If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women” (340).

Though Caroline and Shirley both have firm beliefs about their own rights and autonomy at the beginning of the novel, their friendship reaffirms their beliefs and they build upon one another’s ideas to have a better understanding of their allotted place in society. Caroline’s opinions become more refined and specific once she begins her relationship with Shirley, with her developing confidence to express her views. In Chapter 22, she affirms, “I believe single women should have more to do—better chances of interesting and profitable occupation than they possess now” (379). The more the women engage with the men of the town, the more they discern the causes of their problems. The devout Caroline believes that the subjugation of her gender was not intended by God, saying that “God hears many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears against, or frowns on with impotent contempt [...] People hate to be reminded of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy” (380). Shirley goes a step further when speaking to her misogynist uncle, arguing that they do not serve the same God and telling him, “I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than you” (529, as she feels her uncle’s cruelty and hypocrisy has little to do with the religion she believes in. Through the arguments between her characters such as this, Brontë questions the source of contemporary women’s subjugation and shows how unnatural their oppression is. She also demonstrates, in her female characters and in herself as author, the rational ability of women to engage in these difficult questions.

Benefits and Deficits of Progress

Progress of many kinds is a central focus of Shirley, yet Brontë shows both the upsides and downsides of this change throughout the novel. In Chapter 23, Caroline asks Rose Yorke “Is change necessary to happiness [...] Is it synonymous with it?” to which Rose responds, “I don’t know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same” (388). Variants of this question run throughout the novel, particularly in regard to the effects of the Industrial Revolution but also in regard to personal improvement. Caroline’s life is stuck in a rut for most of the novel, and she looks for an economic solution, believing that working as a governess will be a progression in her life. While she sees several benefits to it—such as obtaining her own money and thus some independence—Shirley, Mrs. Pryor, and even Helstone are quick to tell her of the negative consequences of becoming a governess. Caroline’s education as a whole is a form of progress in the novel that sparks this debate as well. As she learns more and becomes more educated through experience, she opens up new opportunities for herself but also becomes more aware of her limited choices for her future. Shirley is accused of something similar, although more specific, by her uncle, who believes her education has turned her against marriage. He tells her “You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have imbibed French principles” (524). The accusation that Shirley is tainted by revolutionary thinking would have been considered especially derogatory at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The novel therefore explores how attempts for personal progression in the mind or in life, particularly in women, can conflict with social conventions and the speed of social progress.

Robert gains a different kind of education during the novel: He learns that he must be more considerate of his workers and is determined to change just before he is shot. His character arc explores what progress is and who should share in it. This strand is key to how the novel engages with the mixed effects of the Industrial Revolution. Characters frequently discuss how Robert’s use of new machinery in the mill, the only thing that keeps his business afloat, is harming the workers he has had to lay off because they have become redundant to him. The narrator, however, is perhaps the most vocal on the subject of industrial progress throughout the novel. She acknowledges the cynical reality of the Industrial Revolution bringing about good change while also doing harm, saying early in the novel that “[i]t would not do to stop the progress of invention, to damage science by discouraging its improvements; the war could not be terminated; efficient relief could not be raised” (30). This philosophical opening is mirrored by the ending. Perhaps better than any other part of the novel, the final few paragraphs of Shirley raise questions regarding the outcome of the Industrial Revolution and whether it did more good than harm. Several years after the events of the novel, the narrator goes to the mill and sees “the manufacturer’s day-dreams embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes” (611). It is clear to her that business is booming at the mill, yet by including the desolation of the once-green countryside of Shirley’s land, Brontë complicates readers’ understanding of the past and what changes—good or bad—progress has caused.

Romantic Love Versus Friendship

Throughout the novel, lines are often blurred between friendship and romance, especially between Robert, Caroline, Shirley, and Louis. Although she never acknowledges it directly, it is implied that Shirley is aware of Caroline and Robert’s feelings for one another from the beginning of the novel. As the novel’s driving force, Shirley takes care to bring Robert up in conversation with Caroline as much as possible to learn more and foster their love. Early in their friendship, however, both Shirley and Caroline feel insecure about their friendship when around Robert. Caroline believes both Shirley and Robert will abandon her when they inevitably marry. Shirley is far less concerned with her relationship with Robert, telling her friend “He keeps intruding between you and me. Without him we should be good friends; but [...] ever and anon he renders me to you a mere bore and nuisance” (252). Before the introduction of Louis, Shirley’s most significant relationship is her friendship with Caroline, which a queer-theory reading of the text would suggest is an incipiently romantic relationship as well, especially given the novel’s play with Shirley’s gender identity. Shirley’s friendship with Louis is also a question to both characters. Friends before, they find things difficult to manage when, on meeting again, this is complicated by sexual desire. Although outwardly they appear as friends at most, they often treat one another coldly despite both knowing their own feelings are more than platonic. In this way, Brontë gestures toward the unnamable problem of sexual tension and shows the two characters learning to recognize these feelings and trying—and failing—to contain them.

The idea of what constitutes a friendship versus a romance is brought into question by the ostensible love triangle between Caroline, Robert, and Shirley. The novel’s concealment of the proposal scene between Robert and Shirley enables the suspense of the love triangle to continue for most of the narrative. Significant to the character’s management of this dynamic is their concern for the value of friendship and how it can be threatened by the introduction of (unwanted) romantic intentions. Caroline is the most aware of her romantic feelings, despite knowing Robert might not even want to be her friend because of them. When Robert’s feelings for Caroline come to his attention, he exclaims “This won’t do! There’s weakness—there’s downright ruin in all this” (94). Recognizing how economically imprudent a marriage between the two would be, Robert attempts to convert his romantic feelings purely into ones of friendship, which ultimately fails him a’ the end of the ’ovel. To everyone but themselves, Robert and Shirley seem like the perfect couple, so much so that it leads Robert to think it would be a good idea to propose to her. Describing his failed proposal, he tells Yorke, “I felt in her a powerful magnet to my interest and vanity. I never felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self” and that he vowed to “be practical, and not romantic” (508) by choosing to propose. Shirley is insulted by him diminishing their friendship in this way, telling him, “You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimate in my friendship, are cast out” (511), showing how she feels he has tainted both their friendship and, by extension, impugned her loyalty to Caroline. Shirley and Robert ignore several of the social rules against friendships between unmarried men and women, leading society, and Caroline to assume that they must marry. Shirley and Louis’s relationship is also founded on a lengthy friendship which alters when they meet again as adults. The narrative continually promotes friendship as the most important and necessary type of relationship, a solace when love is not present and a firm basis when it is.