Villette

“[My]y godmother having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad to change scene and society.”

Lucy Snowe, the novel’s main protagonist, also narrates the story. She does not reveal much about herself to the reader, but in this passage, she hints at some strife in her past that convinced her godmother to remove her from her family home. The term “unsettled sadness” is an understated way of referring to unresolved trauma. Lucy will habitually use this cold, austere tone to discuss her own life. The motif of the shadow is also introduced in this passage.

“I heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff testified to her emotion.”

Lucy notes Paulina’s unusual emotional comportment. She is unlike other children in almost every way, but her morose demeanor is much more like an adult’s than a six-year-old girl’s. This passage reveals Paulina is not only sad in her present circumstances separated from her father but that she has experienced some sort of trauma in her past—probably the death of her mother. 

“One might have thought the child had no mind or life of her own, but must necessarily live, move, and have her being in another; now that her father was taken from her, she nestled to Graham, and seemed to feel by his feelings: to exist in his existence.”

Charlotte Brontë focuses on women and their roles not only in society but in relationships—specifically, the power dynamics between the sexes. Lucy notices that Paulina, even at a young age, has learned to find her value in the eyes and attentions of a man. Lucy is unfamiliar with this feeling, as she prides herself on being an independent and unemotional woman.