ABSTRACT
Jane Eyre imagines a possibility, embodies that possibility in extreme form, and then withdraws from the extremity. In Jane Eyre, however, where the window becomes just as significant an image, it does not separate the human interior from a daemonic exterior. Both Villette and Jane Eyre combine the most personal form of address with the most subtle terms of evasion. Both seem to offer the transparency of a confession, until one thinks to ask who has confessed. The prevailing view of Villette conceives its root struggle as an intrapsychic conflict, Lucy Snowe's grand passion set against her grand denial. Jane Eyre begins life plain but passionate; Lucy begins life only plain. Lucy Snowe enters Villette as a character without definition, a name without identity, and a voice without origins. Lucy represents Brontë's boldest experiment in characterization. She enters Villette as a cipher in her own narrative, a character virtually without traits.
