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Chapter 2: First Lessons in the Art of Instruction
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Agnes Grey, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Education, Authority, and Class
Money vs. Love in Marriage
Women and Fulfillment
Power and Cruelty
Religion
Summary
Analysis
The next day in the school room, Agnes discovers that Tom is clever but lazy, while Mary Ann is both lazy and almost illiterate. After managing to teach them a little, Agnes takes them outside before their midday meal—only to discover that the children order her around. They insist on playing in a dirty, wet well on the lawn despite Agnes ordering them repeatedly to stop—only for Mr. Bloomfield to ride past, criticize “Miss Grey” for his children’s dirtiness, and ride on. Agnes is unpleasantly surprised by his rude tone.
When Tom and Mary Ann order Agnes around, it implies that they have learned from their parents to view Agnes as a mere employee and thus not as someone they need to respect or obey. By criticizing Agnes rather than his children for his children’s dirty and disobedient behavior, Mr. Bloomfield models disrespect for Agnes to his children and thus further undermines her.
Themes
Later, Agnes eats lunch with Mr. Bloomfield, Mrs. Bloomfield, and the children. Mr. Bloomfield, a thin man in his 30s, spends the meal complaining about first the mutton and then the beef. When he asks what’s for dinner, he ends up harshly criticizing his wife for not knowing what kind of fish the cook has bought. Mrs. Bloomfield snaps back at him. When the meal ends, Agnes—embarrassed—is glad to flee.
Though the Bloomfields are clearly wealthier than the Greys, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield do not seem to have the kind of mutually supportive marriage that Agnes’s parents share—another detail hinting that love is better than wealth for producing happiness.
Themes
As days pass and Agnes comes to know the children better, her work gets worse. The children fear Mr. Bloomfield, who punishes them when he’s angry. The girls also fear Mrs. Bloomfield, though Tom will only obey his mother when she bribes him. Yet the Bloomfields have forbidden Agnes from punishing their children, and she has nothing with which to bribe them. Moreover, the children have no longing for praise, and they don’t fear upsetting Agnes.
Implicitly, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield don’t want Agnes to punish the children because giving Agnes authority over the children would disrupt the social hierarchy in which the children are future “masters” and “mistresses” while Agnes is a mere employee. Yet by insisting on this classist hierarchy, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield hobble Agnes’s attempts to teach their children anything.
Themes
Tom, a little tyrant, hits his sisters and Agnes. Agnes doesn’t hit back—she has discovered that, contrary to Mrs. Bloomfield’s beliefs, he sometimes lies and would likely exaggerate the incident to his parents. Instead, she holds him down until he stops hitting. Yet often he simply refuses to learn, and she has no power to punish him. She tries to reason with the children, praise them when they’re good, and criticize them proportionately but not angrily when they’re bad. None of these tactics work.
Tom’s physical violence toward Agnes and his younger sisters emphasizes that his father and uncle’s encouragement of his cruelty toward animals has real negative consequences for his treatment of other people. Victorian parents and educators were far more accepting of corporal punishment than people are today—indeed, Mr. Bloomfield likely punishes his children corporally. So the Bloomfields’ refusal to let Agnes corporally punish Tom even when he hits her indicates not their tender-heartedness or progressiveness but rather their refusal to grant Agnes any real authority over the children, thus undermining her ability to teach them.
Themes
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Tom will occasionally do his work so that he can go play, but Mary Ann often falls to the floor and lies there as if dead until mealtimes rather than do any schoolwork. If Agnes shakes her or pulls her hair or puts her in timeout, she shrieks until Mrs. Bloomfield comes and asks what on earth is going on. When Agnes explains that Mary Ann refuses to do her lessons, Mrs. Bloomfield—without force—tells her daughter to be a good girl and then, glaring at Agnes, says she hopes she won’t hear any more screaming.
Again, Victorian parents and teachers accepted and practiced corporal punishment much more readily than people do today, so Victorian readers would likely not be shocked by Agnes pulling Mary Ann’s hair, though modern readers may be. Mrs. Bloomfield wants Mary Ann to be quiet but gives Agnes no authority to discipline Mary Ann and blames Agnes for the child’s noise—yet again indicating that Agnes’s employers want her to do her job under impossible conditions.
Themes
When Fanny turns four and enters the school room, Agnes discovers that the little girl is a liar who spits in people’s faces and “bellow[s]” when she doesn’t get her way. Because Fanny has been quiet in front of Mr. Bloomfield and Mrs. Bloomfield in the past, they blame Agnes for the “bellowing” and insinuate that she has somehow taught Fanny bad behavior. Despite the parents’ insinuations, Agnes resolves to continue in the job and improve the children’s behavior—even when Mrs. Bloomfield tells Agnes her Christmas vacation will be shorter than she expected.
Fanny has just graduated from the nursery, where a nurse would have cared for her. Agnes would have had nothing to do with Fanny until she entered the schoolroom—yet the Bloomfields immediately blame Agnes for Fanny’s behavior, which reveals their failure to take responsibility for their own children and desire to foist blame onto lower-status people in the household.
Themes
