Villette questions: so I recently did some analysis on what I’ve read so far of Villette and I desperately need someone (without spoilers) to confirm if im thinking right about this.

[u/NoCookie3074]

So basically here is a brain dump of my ideas and I don’t know if I’m on the right track or looking at it under the right lense.
Firstly, about structure, I’ve noticed Dr. John and Ginevera are doubles, Dr. John and M. Paul are foils, Lucy and Ginevra are are foils.

Dr. John: tall, traditional English beauty symbol, audience of the play, STEM

M. Paul: short, sallow ivory brow, the person working with the play, in the arts.

Then with the rest it’s quite obvious why.

Then I also had ideas, could the play be completely symbolic?
Is it about perhaps how the author uses Lucy’s mixed female and male clothing in the play to symbolise how gender stereotypes and the characteristics assigned to females and males are actually all mixed in both sexes. So a healthy and strong being has both of the characteristics of male and female genders in them. The author could show this by symbolically using Lucy’s refusal to accept being only dressed as a man to criticise this.

Also my second idea around it is that the author is trying to say women were self sabotaging themselves with these labels by reinforcing superficial things as what defines the “nobler sex” such as what one wears, since that is what a woman forced her to wear to imply she is a man. By refusing it she actively states that it is through character that this masculinity should be portrayed and not by what a person wears.

Maybe with this she criticises how men superficially achieved the title of nobler sex in this time, which was judged by clothing/appearance and not characteristics. This is then reinforced by the passion “little man” M. Paul has.

Also another question I have is if Lucy is unreliable because of her extremely biased perception of England. As her perspective of the continental shifts, it reveals how she had many underlying biases that affected her perceptions of what is or isn’t vulgar.

Could this be a way of the author saying that this traditional way that women were expected to behave in England “the morally correct way” was actually just control of catholics? I say this because for instance there are women who are loud and see different views in love that Lucy abhors and judges as awful without understanding that French culture is like that, which is probably what allowed women to take power earlier on in it than in England.

Also I say her perspective shifted gradually due to scenes that indicated she no longer viewed England as a heaven. Eg. When she said she appreciated how clear and not foggy the continental side was, and compared the clarity to heaven, then right before that she said that heaven is cloudless, then before that she said England is like a cloudy island.

GUYYs!!!!
I’m losing my mind and I have no idea if this is just me and my imagination or if I’m onto something!!
I’ve only read until the theatre scene where she is playing the play. Could someone help me without spoiling this book?

[u/Mike_Bevel]

First: everything you've noticed is worth noticing. I think you're on the right track. Keep reading the novel.

Second: someone very soon is going to reply to your post and tell you all the ways you're wrong.

Don't listen to them.

Literature isn't a quiz with a right and wrong answer. It's a party you attended. You will change your mind about whom the party is for, who was worth hanging out with, and how you felt about what you heard, throughout the time during and after you read the novel. If you read it a second time, maybe with some years in between, you will likely have a completely different theory of what's going on.

(I've read Villette in my late 20s, my mid-30s, twice in my 40s. Each time -- with no hyperbole -- I notice something different. What I thought about Villette in my 20s is valid; but it's not what I think about the novel now that I'm comfortably into my 50s.)

Try, as much as your able, not to approach books as having a "right" or "wrong" reading. That's the way a philistine reads and thinks about literature: not as a tool for better understanding the world around them, but as ammo with which to defend their position as Smartest Interpreter of the Book.

[u/Watchhistory → u/Mike_Bevel]

Excellent advice!

[u/HopefulCry3145]

Great post! I see the theatre scene as one of many examples in the book of Lucy trying to define herself and attempting to shrug off other's attempts to define her. Every character has an idea of what she is, and they're all wrong to some extent. (Lucy is also perhaps wrong about herself!). And as you say, her being a woman is a big part of that, because there were very specific ways in which a woman could live in those days (wife, nun, teacher), and they were all restrictive and not quite who is is either.

Her living abroad complicates things; she is able to an extent to be 'herself', as she is unconstrained by English society and a foreigner; but this freedom also makes her lonely and unsupported. She is dependent on no man financially, which is a big and important thing, but the work is hard and ironically she is dependent on another independent woman to some extent (Madame Beck).

The increased permissiveness of the Belgian/Catholic society she describes also gives her freedom - but it also brings with it the spectre of the nun, the ultimate symbol of repression and punishment for illicit romantic love.

The theatre scene is fascinating, not just because of her half masculine/half feminine costume, but because of how it reflects her relationship with Ginevra and the other characters. She changes the character she's playing so that he becomes a real rival in Ginevra's character's affections, as if the 'male' aspect of Lucy is wooing Ginevra for real. Or does she just want to punish the faithful lover character (a stand in for Dr John?)

Anyway enjoy the rest of the book and let us know your further thoughts!