Agnes Grey

"Refreshed, delighted, invigorated, I walked along, forgetting all my cares, feeling as if I had wings to my feet, and could go at least forty miles without fatigue, and experiencing a sense of exhilaration to which I had been an entire stranger since the days of early youth." This was the first time I've ever read anything by Anne Bronte, and wow was I pleased! Agnes is a delightful character who captured my heart from the start. Born into a lovely, happy family, they lived in a complicated economical situation after losing their fortune, and Agnes wanted to do anything she could to help them. After becoming a governess, she's faced with a very different reality than hers. Both families that took her in saw Agnes as an inferior being, and were extremely oppressive, thus representing a challenge to do what's apparently impossible - to try and educate spoilt, vain, rude children. This turned out to be even more difficult because of Agnes's position as an educated, working woman who had to support herself, since this represented a huge contrast to these families' moral values, if you can call them that, based on wealth, social status and class-consciousness. Anne Bronte often asks us, readers, to reflect on what defined this society, its gender roles and class disparity, always with an extremely gentle, calm, elegant tone, that doesn't shy away from also being passionate and charming in its own way. Rather than having a lot of angst or tragedy, it's an invitation to go on a personal journey with this humble, kind, insecure but strong and brave person who, eventually, finds the perfect balance between her two worlds - the one she's always known, and the one she cannot wait to unravel. It's also worth noting that the idea some of these people have of love and care is hilarious, and Agnes's (Anne's?) observations about that really made me laugh!

The novel is in a very well order. Bronte sisters books are really deep and heart touching.

Note that this book is literally tiny and the font is pretty small. It is pretty though. If you're a fan of the Brontës the story itself is charming and engaging -- an indictment of the so-called superior class from the eyes of Anne/Agnes, a governess in limbo between her employers and their servants.

Agnes Grey, by the lesser known Brontë sister Anne is based on her experiences as a governess. It revolves around the idea of the relevance of a governess in a young woman's life in mid 19th century England and despite everything, the shaky power that she truly holds over the one in her care. In a true buildingsroman manner, Agnes Grey is an exploration of abuse of different kinds by the expected superiority of the upper class men in the English society. In her experience as a governess in the Bloomfield family, she encounters the criticizing and condescending nature of Mr. Bloomfield and his image in his son Tom, a very abusive child who spent his free time torturing animals. In her tenure with the Murrays, her position is better but the young girls often used her as a pawn in their little schemes. Her only solace comes from Nancy Brown, an old woman who liked to have Agnes read to her and Mr. Weston, whose kindness stays with her. Despite her empathetic soul and kindness, Agnes was a girl who always felt a little isolated irrespective of where she was. In the words of George Moore, Agnes Grey was written with "all the qualities of Jane Austen and other qualities"; it is a subtle work of social commentary which achieves in ingraining a dewy feeling in the reader. It is a short novel that makes reading feel like such a pleasant experience, a book that makes the heart so unexplainably happy!

Para el precio que tiene, está bien, es tapa dura pero al ser pequeño hay veces que cuesta abrirlo para leerlo. Además, he encontrado bastantes faltas de ortografía. En cuanto a la historia de Agnes Grey, me ha parecido una historia muy bonita, de superación que enseña muchos valores.