LUMEA SERVICIILOR SECRETE ÎN FICŢIUNEA DE

CONSUM. POETICA ROMANULUI DE SPIONAJ

CUPRINS
Rezumat…………………………………………………………….…………………………….1

Introducere..………………………………………………….…………………………………..2

1. : ………………..
1.1 The Dissenters………………………………………………….………………6
1.2 The Hegelians………………………………………………………………...…6
1.3 The Positivists………………………………………………………….……….8
1.4 The Atheists……………………………………………………………….…...11
1.5 Conclusions………………………………………………………........……….13

2. : ……………………
2.1 Mr. Hale, Dissenter or Unitarian?...................................................................16
2.2 Bessy Higgins, a girl with ‘methodee fancies’………………….……………21
2.3 Nicholas Higgins, the agnostic ahead of his time….………….……………..24
2.4 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………25

3. : ……………
3.1 Paganism………………………………………………………….…………..27
3.2 Angel Clare’s ‘neo – paganism’……………………………………………..29
3.2 Tess, the ‘boundary breaker’…………………………………………..……32
3.4 Tess, the positivist heroine…………………………..………………………34
3.5 Paganism vs. Positivism……………………………………………...……..36

4. : …………………………….
4.1 Mrs. Reed, the woman whose religion was ‘hate’……………....…………39

4.2 Mr. Brocklehurst’s Evangelicalism……………………………...…………40

4.3 Helen Burns and the religion of love………………………….……..…..…44
4.4 Conclusions…………………………………………….……….……...….…46
 5. : …………………

5.1 About the story…………………………………..………………..…………48

5.2 Another religious view…………………………….………………...………50
5.3 Contextualization………………………………………………………...….53
5.4 Rewriting the ‘New Testament’…………………………………...………..54
5.5 Conclusions…………………………………………………………….….…57

Concluzii…..…………………………………………….……………..………………………58

Bibliografie……………………………………………………….……………………………59
 REZUMAT

The purpose of this study is to explore how religion influenced some of the writings
from the Victorian literature, after the scientific discoveries that shook the era and the
continuous changes within the Church.
The research seeks to answer the question of whether religion still remained an
important part of the era’s literature and how Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, Thomas
Hardy and Charles Dickens coped with the loss of faith in the Christian dogma after they
were acquainted with Darwin’s writings.
The first chapter of this BA Project presents the religious context of the Victorian era,
an essential introduction for understanding the theme of my work. The second chapter argues
that Elizabeth Gaskell saw the embracing of industrialization as a manner to deal with the
loss of faith, and analyses her most well-known novel, ‘North and South’. The third chapter
presents one of Charlotte Brontë’s writings, ‘Jane Eyre’ and how the author was absorbing
currents of religious thoughts not only from Anglicanism, but also from Catholicism and
Methodism. In the fourth chapter, I tried to show how Hardy embraced an alternative
‘religion’ in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’, The Positivist ‘Religion of Humanity’, while the
fifth chapter is dedicated to Dickens and his writing ‘The Life of our Lord’, a piece of work
composed in his last years, which offered readers a distilled version of Dickensian
Christianity and a direct articulation of his Jesus-centric belief system.
The methods adopted in planning the research incorporate investigation of primary
resources, textual reading and attempting to concentrate on the themes that are appropriate
and suitable for the paper’s subject.
On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that religion still
remained the most important topic of the era, although the writers had their doubts regarding
religion. Notwithstanding the fact that Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, Thomas Hardy
and Charles Dickens had different opinions and beliefs about the Christian Church and faith,
their works did not lack in religious references and none of the above mentioned writers
renounced completely in believing in an Absolute Power, even after Darwin’s Theory of
Evolution and industrialization.

1
 INTRODUCERE

Religion is a system of beliefs, dogmas, rites and feelings that define the relation
between humans and divinity. Religion existed since the moment mankind existed; Homo
Habilius worshiped natural phenomena, due to the fact that they could not understand or
control nature. Religion changed alongside human’s evolution, meeting the demands of the
time. Hence, when humans renounced to fear the uncontrollable meteorological phenomena,
the basis of religion adjusted to the new needs, as the need of a supreme protection or the
idea that everything has a purpose and every existence is not in vain. Maslow’s hierarchy of
human needs situates the need of protection on the second stage of the pyramid, being
considered a ‘basic need’; therefore, religion imposed itself as a very important part of
human life.
The theme of my BA Project is ‘The influence of religion on the Victorian literature’
and I decided to discuss the subject of religion in this era, as the Victorians had faced the
notorious ‘religious doubt’. After Darwin’s ‘Theory of evolution’ was published, the
religious doubt started contouring more and more. For the first time in history, people had
the opportunity to ‘revoke’ the connection with divinity: they were not God’s creation
anymore. They were not forced to believe in something that cannot be seen, and they were
not supposed to fear God’s punishment if they sinned. Another cause of Victorian doubt was
that the religious institutions were no longer serving the moral sensibility, as they were
supposed to. Humanitarianism, the need of a social reform, the changes and conflicts within
churches, the evangelical movement and the influence of scientific discoveries were also
important factors that led to this loss of faith.
The religious doubt became vocal and widespread in a manner that England had not
previously seen before. It was especially pronounced among the intellectuals, where
manifestos like Charles Hennell's An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity (1838)
or the The Nemesis of Faith (1849), by J. A. Froude and Frank Newman were much debated,
while important scholars as John Henry Newman and Mill wrote autobiographically
about their crises of faith.

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 CHAPTER ONE
The religious context

1.0 A brief introduction into Victorian religion

The Victorians1 were concerned with only two subjects: religion and science. As
George Eliot stated in Fortnightly Review (1865): “The supremely important fact [of the
period] was the gradual reduction of all phenomena within the sphere of established law,
which carries as a consequence the rejection of the miraculous [and] has its determining
current in the development of physical science.” Like Eliot, John Stuart Mill also saw the
relation between science and religion as essentially a polemical one: "The war against
religious beliefs, in the last century was carried on principally on the ground of common
sense or of logic; in the present age, on the ground of science" (Mill, 1969: 126). As the
winner in this war, science became the central arena of intellectual life, while the religious
doubt was both general and vehement in a manner it had not formerly been in England, and it
was especially noticeable among the intellectual classes.
Despite all the changes and the loss of influence, church attendance held firm over the

course of the century. Although it may be less obvious, religion still remained a powerful and
dominant influence on Victorian literature and all religious concerns saturated the fiction. But
before we could discuss about the religion’s influence over literature, let us make an idea
about the religious context of the era. In the early 1830, Protestant Christianity was the main
religion of England, while religions and sects as Judaism or Roman Catholicism never really
integrated within the English Ecclesiastical order and were used only as a negative mirror for
self – definition. But the English Victorian Church was in a precarious state, due to the its
involvement in the political regime and parliament of England at that time; the Church started
to lose its privileges, as a consequence of the progressive yielding of its power and control
over the monarch and the Parliament - the key figures of the political arena (Schneewind,
1970: 49).

1
‘Victorian era’ is the name given to period of Queen Victoria's reign (from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22
January 1901), thus all Englishmen of the time were considered ‘Victorians’

3
 The established Church of England had three parties: the ‘low’ churchmen, also
known as Evangelicals, the ‘high’ churchmen (the Tractarians, Puseyites, or Ritualists) and
the ‘broad’ church. The first ones were also the larger group and they were always attempting
to control the doctrine and policy within the Church. The latter party was the smallest, but it
comprised men who opposed the idea of the assertive heterogeneity of conflicting parties of
churchmen; they pledge for conformity and accord. The Evangelicals’ doctrine stated
individual piety, the necessity of an individual redemption and the experience of conversion
and salvation. The Ritualists stressed the support to the sacramental ritual of the church and
its historical continuity, attributing to its priests genuine descent from the Apostles. The
Methodists encouraged the revival of emotional religion based on the simple ideology that
the vicarious atonement of Christ had been earned by every Christian man. But the later
generations of Methodists were not successful in keeping the great influence of their
predecessors; consequently, their belief in utter faith in salvation became a reason for
haughtiness, pride and for deprecating other religious ways (Schneewind, 1970: 55). There
were some remarkable literary figures that belonged to the Evangelical Church of England:
the Brontë sisters, Macaulay, George Eliot, Samuel Butler and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(Schneewind, 1970: 58). Then again, the power of Evangelicals started to decline after 1870,
due to the fact that their doctrine was based on the Bible and they could not endure the flow
of skepticism led by academics and philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle, Charles Darwin,
Hegel or Kant. They were not able to answer, on a rational basis, to the ideas and questions
of the skeptics.
Cardinal John Henry stated, as a response to the increasing conflict between the
rationalist secular thinking and the decline of religious belief, ‘It is as absurd to argue men, as
to torture them, into believing’ (Schneewind, 1970: 60). He considered that churches were
not infallible and he aroused doubts about the authority of the church. This was the context
that led to the arose of the Oxford Movement, whose task was the enhancing of religion’s
position by turning to a conservative attitude of protecting religion against scientific
skepticism and the surfacing of democracy.

4
1.1 The Dissenters

Unlike Anglicans, the Dissenters believed in the necessity of the trustworthiness and
honesty of the clergy. They considered that the credibility and dignity of a clergyman comes
from his spiritual eligibility, and not from his apostolic bloodline. Another difference
between them and the Anglicans was that the latter adopted adult baptism, because they
considered that the individual conscience was the decisive criterion for interpreting the
Scriptures. The Dissenters preached through England, spreading out their doctrine. However,
they tended towards a literal interpretation of the Bible, becoming unable to accommodate
the rising power of skepticism (Schneewind, 1970: 65).

1.2 The Hegelians

The philosopher Hegel (1770-1831) influenced significantly the philosophical

thought in England. He postulated that the universe was the manifestation of the ‘Absolute’
in a state of ‘struggle with itself is the deepest philosophical truth’ (Schneewind, 1970: 68).
He imagined the Absolute as the Supreme Being with absolute power to rule the universe.
His beliefs became known as ‘Hegelianism’ and led the campaign of downgrading the
epistemological (sensory) order of empiricism common in Victorian England to a second-
fiddle constituent of Positivist philosophy.
The positive theory of Hegel set forth ‘a new philosophical basis for theology’
(Schneewind, 1970, 83). As stated by Hegel’s philosophy, the human mind was in a
continuous evolution to a better understanding of universe and our existence; the natural
phenomena, history and all disciplines that studied thought and art were displays ‘of the self-
development of ‘the Absolute’, ‘the ultimate reality’ that our unconscious mind was trying to
apprehend in a multitude of ways.
Accepting Hegel’s idea that the Absolute is God, Christian belief subordinates to
higher abstraction, thus sectarian dogma has to accept a more liberal theology.

5
 His postulation gained support throughout England. As a consequence, a group of
Oxford clerics led by the influence of T.H. Green, published in 1889 an anthology of essays,
“Lux Mundi”, where they suggested that ‘a combination of the belief in progressive
revelation with Hegelian idealism’, could situate their faith ‘into its right relation to modern
intellectual and moral problems’ (Schneewind, 1970, 83). The Hegelians did not take Christ’s
Crucifixion as a central point of their theology, but rather His Incarnation, thereby broking
their connections with the Evangelicals.
Moreover, they stated that the only reason that God healed the severance between
Himself and humans was an act of benevolence. Therefore, if God was considered All-
Benevolent, the Hegelians did not perceive Christ as a saviour, ruling out the belief in the
damnation of man. They gathered that religion involved both truth and emotion, and this
belief could be supported without being in disagreement with the discoveries and
evolution of secular science. They reckoned that ‘the advance of secular knowledge…is for
faith, an acquiring gain’ (Schneewind, 1970, 83). Hegel’s disciples contended that the pillar
of science is ‘abstraction’, handling and examining bare facts. Hence, science could not cover
the entire truth of man, because it wasn’t able to go beyond and explore the moral and
spiritual side of man (Schneewind, 1970, 83).
The German clergy was highly educated and more competent to engage in a
philosophical debate in comparison with their English counterparts. Schneewind mentions
that, ‘A Liberal Congregationalist complained of it: “The fact is, that, filled with an
unfounded alarm, people are getting into the habit of listening with nervous anxiety to every
student [minister] they happen to hear...to discover whether he has any leaning to
Germanism” (Dale, 1898, 69). Owing to their strict and factual belief in the Bible, English
clerics separated themselves from Higher Criticism and that separation was also caused by
the English jingoistic prejudice averse to the German Higher Critics. From the clerical
originators of Essays and Reviews, only two were detained and were pronounced guilty of
recusancy and heresy in a church court in 1860 (Schneewind, 1970, 69-70).

6
 ‘Vestiges of Creation’, an unknown publication, posited in 1844 that the creation of
living beings was the result of biological evolution. Denying the role of a Supreme Architect
of the universe, this theory opened the way for Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859.
While both works submitted that all species had developed through a natural process of
selection and adaptation, they eluded the Genesis’ message, that man was God’s creation. It
also subverted the ‘argument from design’, stating that Creation might as well be ‘the
result of chance’ (Schneewind, 1970, 72-73).
Nonetheless, like the Hegelians, John Tyndall, a skilful Victorian physicist, excluded
the prospect of warfare between religion and science, since the field of interest of each
discipline was different; whereas science engages the human intellect, religion appeals to
human emotion.

1.3 The Positivists

In the seventeenth century, English philosophy focused on ‘empiricism’: achieving

epistemological knowledge through observation of natural and universal phenomena. In the
eighteenth century, David Hume stated that knowledge that came from observation could not
travel further than the powers of observation; inevitably, ‘empiricism’ was not able to uncoil
the ambiguities and secrets ‘of the future, of laws of nature, of the essence of physical
objects, or the soul’ (Schneewind, 1970, 76). He published ‘Dialogues on Natural Religion’
in 1779, a work in which he established the ineptness of empiricist principles in reaching
rational ‘knowledge of God or the creation of the universe’ (Schneewind, 1970, 76). His
criticism was continued by John Stuart Mill, whose powerful emphasis on empiricism,
individualism and essentially a live-and-let-live ethics advocated humanism connected to
another philosophy. This new school was French Positivism, developed by Auguste Comte
(Schneewind, 1970, 76-77).

7
 A French count, Henri de Saint-Simon, employed Comte as his secretary. The count
considered that history unwinds two cycles of chronological eras, which repeat themselves:
‘the organic era’ and ‘the critical era’. Through the ‘organic’ era, society sees stability and
unity under the reign of leaders who reached a common basis ‘of a coherent doctrine of
morality and religion’ (Schneewind, 1970, 77). In the ‘critical’ era, bliss, serenity and peace
are defaced by ‘skeptical writings’, as it were Voltaire’s writings (Schneewind, 1970, 77).
The society’s steadiness is deeply disturbed by revolutions or other intense and brutal
changes caused by the excluded classes. This stormy and turbulent era ends progressively
when a new incorporation of moral and political ideology receives consent between the
leaders and the people. It can be said that the Saint-Simonians conceived this ‘definition’
after the case of the French Revolution.
Comte adhered to the above-mentioned view in essence, but he attached to it the
theory which states that the types of thought - serving to unify society over different organic
periods -, are subjected to an evolution which controls the passing of human history.
Thorough his writings, he postulated three stages of thought: in the first stage, thought is
‘theological’ - men decipher events by ascribing them to the dispensation of a supreme being
(a god). After a temporary period of skepticism, this stage is succeeded by ‘metaphysical’
thinking, in which occurrences are interpreted by attributing them to astrology and witchcraft,
where events can be known only completely by detecting their effects. In this stage of
thought, the state of society is distinguished by cataclysmic events: insurrections, revolutions,
and the like. The final stage ‘is reached, after another transitional period’, when thought is
evolved and becomes ‘purely scientific or positive’ (Schneewind, 1970, 77-78). Comte
claims that when reaching this third stage, we are not interested anymore in answering the
question, ‘Why does this sort of event occur?’ By contrast, we are concerned with the
investigation of the circumstances and phenomena that cause the occurrence of the event by
following logical deduction (Schneewind, 1970, 78).

8
 Comte forecasted that Western Europe was moving towards the positivist stage and
the contribution of intellectuals was to help with the transition:

‘Now, the existing disorder is abundantly accounted for by the existence, all at once, of three
incompatible philosophies – the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive. Any one of these
might alone secure some sort of social order; but while the three coexist, it is impossible for us to

understand one another upon any essential point whatever.’ (Comte, 1876:35).

As stated by Comte, a parsimonious and peaceful society would be the result of the
spreading of Positivist thought. Society would be united by benevolence, generosity,
humanitarianism and developed meliorism, rather than by fear of celestial beings in Heaven,
or by a prevailed state of terror installed by armed tyrannies. This is because humanitarianism
would ultimately guide to the emergence of ‘a new religion, the Religion of Humanity’
(Schneewind, 1970:78); therefore Comte posed an alternative and challenging religion to
Christianity. Nonetheless, the positivists did not intend to overthrow Christianity; au
contraire, they tried to elucidate it.
The positivists thought that Christianity was in state of anachronism and that was the
reason why Christianity had become invalid by the Victorian era – it lured only to emotion,
and not to the intellect of man. Comte considered that time had come for a new religion, a
Religion of Humanity, that could merge both human emotion and intellect, with an only
purpose to instill people with self-sacrifice to serve the welfare of man. In 1859, a positivist
Church was opened in England by Richard Congreve (Schneewind, 1970: 78). John Stuart
Mill and George Eliot were only some of the English intellectuals, who were influenced by
Positivism, considering that it offered comfort to humanity from its daily agonies.
John Stuart Mill, although utilitarian, was an exponent for positivism in Britain. In
spite of the fact that he rejected Comte’s Positivist Church, he sided with the major principle
of its philosophy (Mill, 1865: 29-33). He approved the idea of the significance of human
thought ‘as a historical agent’ (Schneewind, 1970: 79). Mill regarded empiricism to be the
only new unifying creed of the human thought and emotion.

9
 He intended to prove the genuineness, rightfulness and accuracy of our experiential
knowledge derived from observation, especially when employing ‘the law of contradiction’
(i.e. the peculiarities of natural phenomena), on which, according to his view, logic rests,
reckoning ‘the law of contradiction’ the exception that confirms the rule of the consistency of
natural laws. Notwithstanding the fact that Mill fails to agree with Hume’s skepticism in
general, he agreed with it in manner and respect of religion. ‘The rational attitude of a
thinking mind towards the supernatural…is that of skepticism’, Mill wrote once in his ‘The
Essays on Religion’, where he led a careful examination to verify the forthrightness of
religious doctrines, by embracing empirical techniques of observation of nature, matter and
the universe. He concluded that, out of all these techniques, ‘only the argument from design’
could carve the way towards the possibility of the existence of a god. Even though,
dogmatically, this god could or could not be the Christian God, it would be a product of
philosophical ideas based on empiricism and its purpose would be to integrate the human
thought and emotion in one doctrine and ideology: the Religion of Humanity.
Mill’s god existed due to philosophically and logically deduction, and not by blind
adherence to the Christian dogma. Therefore, his god lacks omnipotence and all-knowledge,
being rather limited in power and knowledge, ergo in his authority. But his god is motivated
by kindness and generosity, and unquestionably by other benign motivations (Schneewind,
1970: 79). Although Mill saw Christ as the Supreme moral Ideal for Humanity to imitate, his
reasoning was usually disapproved by orthodox believers for its religious skepticism and
epistemologically deduced god.

1.4 The Atheists

Thomas Carlyle, an important Victorian philosopher, was a clear example of the

Victorian scholars who condemned their religious faith. Oulton states that his writings were
not very helpful in uncovering his religious views since his ideas, such as in ‘Sartor Resartus’
(published in 1833) were disguised in the language of metaphor. In this book, Carlyle advices
the necessity of the evolution of religion; that is, religion had to develop as society
developed, in order to cope with the evolution of human thought and scientific discoveries.

10
 Even though Carlyle affirms that ‘Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps
poisonous’, he lessens the existence of God to a code of morality. God himself has been
removed by the end of the book. Carlyle poses that ‘religion is composed of various symbols,
and that the symbols appropriate to one generation (including Christ himself) are not always
helpful to the next’ (Oulton, 2003: 3). Carlyle’s analysis of the Hebrew Psalm proves his call
for liberal thinking, by virtue of which man can attain an ontological understanding of the
universe:

‘Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist: “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the Universe, God is there.” ‘Thou thyself, cultivated reader, who too probably art no Psalmist, but
a Prosaist, knowing GOD only by tradition, knowest thou any corner of the world where at least
FORCE is not? The drop which thou shakest from thy wet hand rests not where it falls, but to-morrow
thou findest it swept away; already on the wings of the North-wind, it is nearing the Tropic of Cancer.
How came it to evaporate, and not lie motionless? Thinkest thou there’

(Carlyle, 1833:121)

This Psalm reveals Carlyle’s critique of the instilled and dogmatic faith in God, and
his applause of the evolutionary rational and secular thinking that could lead man to
scientifically understand the significance of existence. Kingsland states that evolutionary
notions originated in Britain, due to the biologists Darwin and Huxley.
The ideas were later developed by radical reformers, as their solely role was to
diminish the power of the aristocracy and the Church in the 1830s and 1840s.
In its turn, the church considered the theories of evolution as heretical and derogatory
to the literal belief in Biblical genesis. Darwin dismissed any role of a divine creator,
denying man moral commitment or spiritual significance, since Darwin turned the
environment where man lives into an arena ‘where survival is for the fittest’.
Darwin’s theory of evolution shocked the society, because he found no place for
dispatched prophets. As a biologist, he considered that there was no divine revelations and
spiritual development. He lessened the merits of human intellect, considering humanity a
descendant from lower creatures, and not species the rule the earth, made by a god.
(Kingsland, 1988:175).

11
 His law of struggle for survival may be considered the governor of his theory of
natural selection and it was extended to individuals of various species, not just the humans.
Hence Darwin portrayed the world as a jungle of violent competition amongst men for
resources, where the weaker loses to the stronger (survival of the fittest). This theorem
transformed men into creatures urged by egocentrism and ruthlessness; hence he comes to the
conclusion that this planet does not bring happiness to man.

1.5 Conclusions

Ultimately, we could say that thorough the Victorian era the Church of England lost
its influence over its worshipers because it could not reunite the emerging spirit of scientific
enquiry with dogmatic beliefs in creation and this loss of religious faith became considered
scarcely a subject appropriate to be discussed in the pages of a novel. Nonetheless, it was
disclosed in Victorian fiction through a remarkably prevalent theme: the failure and
disintegration of a sense of social integrity.

‘The disorienting, sometimes hellish urban landscapes of Charles Dickens, the anarchic passions
found in novels by the Brontë sisters, the sexual scandals unwittingly perpetrated by Hardy's
characters - all betray novelists' preoccupation with the loss of spiritual stability in a morally
incoherent world. A very strong element in this lament, beginning in the 1840s, was novelists'
concern with deepening alienation between the various social classes, especially in "working-class

novels" like those of Charles Kingsley, Benjamin Disraeli, and Elizabeth Gaskell.’(David, 2013: 216)

12
 CHAPTER TWO
Crisis of faith in Elisabeth Gaskell’s ‘North and South’

2.0 About the novel

Elizabeth Gaskell was born in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, on 29 th September 1810. She is
known for her novels and short stories, but also for her friendship with writers Charles Dickens
and Charlotte Brontë, two friendships that influenced her work2.
The first published novel of Gaskell was ‘Mary Barton’, anonymously published in
1848, a work of a great importance for her. The novel was written after the author lost a child
and it expresses all of her pain, making it amazingly real and touching. Other well-known
novels written by Gaskell are ‘Cranford’ (1853), ‘North and South’ (1854) – which will be
further analyzed in this chapter -, and ‘Wives and Daughters’ (1865). She became popular for
her ghost stories, published in Dickens’ magazine, Household Words, but her ‘industrial’
fiction made her an important name among the Victorian writers.
The title ‘North and South’ was suggested by Charles Dickens and accepted by Gaskell,
who previously thought naming her novel ‘Margaret’ or ‘Margaret Hale’ 3. For Dickens, ‘North
and South’ was a better title, due to the absolute contrast between the pastoral and industrial
worlds, as presented in the novel. Moreover, he saw a connection between his own “condition
of England novel”, ‘Hard times’, Benjamin Disraeli’s ‘Sybil, or The two nations’ and
Gaskell’s work. But ‘North and South’ is not really shaped as a system of contrasts; nor is it
exactly a “social-problem novel”, because it does not point out a clear account of the industrial
crisis and it does not beg for a solution. ‘North and South’ is more a story about irrevocable
change and changes and about the disordered, chaotic and confusing process of accommodation
and adjustment which results after every change.

2
Elizabeth wrote a biography of Charlotte Brontë (‘The life of Charlotte Brontë’, published in 1857), where she narrates
mostly the author’s personal life; Dickens influence over Gaskell’s work will be discussed in this chapter.
3
Her previous novels were entitled ‘Mary Barton’ and ‘Ruth’, as their eponymous main characters.

13
 Although the novel’s action is set around the first half of the third decade of the 1800s,
Gaskell portrays several issues and question that belong to the period of the composition of the
novel. One of the starting points of the work was the strike that incapacitated the industrial
city of Preston (June 1853 – May 1854). Probably the main cause of the strike was the demand
of a ten per cent wage increase by the town weavers; a demand very similar to the one
presented in her novel (the trade union of Milton Northern asks for a five per cent increase of
their wages, in order to better provide for their families). The novel discusses the two opposite
Victorian lines of thought: despite the fact that the workers’ statute changed after 1848, their
conditions were still a problematic reality, contrasting to the impassive attitude of the middle-
class. While ‘North and South’ debates this frames of mind, it also explores the political
economy of the period, as well as the role of state factories regulation and the female seek for
independence and rebellion, portrayed by the evolution of Margaret.
Nonetheless, the author enquires into another intensely conferred about theme: the
religious crisis. Faith and doubts riot against the Victorian Anglican’s ethics and morals, as we
can observe from the confrontation of Margaret Hale’s Anglican mind-set with the mutinous
spirits of Mr. Hale, her father, who is grinded down by his loss of faith in the Established
Church; her friend, Bessy Higgins, whose escapist creed is more than uncommon to the
Established Church; and with Nicholas Higgins, labeled by Margaret as an atheist and an
infidel, in spite of the fact that he embodies a new system of belief, molded the religious
revolution of the later Victorian Age: agnosticism.

14
2.1 Mr. Hale, Dissenter or Unitarian?

The chapter four and five of the novel represent the intrigue of the novel, focusing on
a very sensitive topic: Mr. Hale loses his faith and he chooses to renounce to his profession
as a minister of the Established Church of England. We must underline the peculiarity of
this, because, although the reader might be tempted to believe that this loss of faith is a
crucial element of the story, over the next chapters Gaskell lessens the emphasis on the
subject4. Mr. Hale’s harrowing confession to his daughter from the fourth chapter of the
novel stands as the pivotal reason for the family’s move away from their community and take
up residence in the North. Prior this decision, he takes into consideration the presumably
shame and pain his family would undergo if they remain in Helstone:

“He made her take a chair by him ; he stirred the fire, snuffed the candles, and sighed once or twice before
he could make up his mind to say – and it came out with a jerk after all –

‘Margaret! I am going to leave Helstone.’ ‘Leave

Helstone, papa! But why?’

Mr. Hale did not answer for a minute or two. He played with some papers on the table in a nervous and
confused manner, opening his lips to speak several times, but closing them again without having the courage
to utter a word.

Margaret could not bear the sight of the suspense, which was even more distressing to her father than to
herself.

‘But why, dear papa? Do tell me!’

He looked up at her suddenly, and then said with a slow and enforced calmness: ‘Because I must no longer
be a minister in the Church of England.’” (N&S, 1995: 33)

4
It is supposed that Dickens’ opinion that she should revise the section of the novel which dealt with Mr. Hale’s
crisis, believing that it was a “dangerous subject”, may have convinced Gaskell. (Uglow, 1993: 361)

15
 Margaret cannot understand what extreme and disturbing cause may have led to such
a radical decision from her father’s part. In spite of the fact that Margaret could appear as
fervent Anglican believer (she prays, attends the Church every Sunday, helps the poor and
lives her life according to the Victorian moral codes), her faith is, actually, a more
conventional one. It is important to emphasize, nevertheless, that, to some extent, she is very
cautious of heterodox practices and she is unable to suppress her Anglican roots (she ‘sighs’
her brother Frederick mentions that Dolores, his Spanish fiancée, is a Romano Catholic), but
she does not abide by the zealous nineteenth-century Evangelical religious demeanor.
All thorough the novel she never disobeys the orthodoxy of her creed, after she has
reached an acceptance with her father’s choice, she tries to avow her faith with a more
receptive and unbiased disposition, still she never relinquishes her habitual commitment to
Anglicanism. Even the author characterizes her as ‘the Churchwoman’ (N&S, 1995: 233),
therefore, since her religious attitude is of a common orthodox Victorian that abides by the
nineteenth-century moral customs (at least while she resides in Helstone and after her father
dies), her reaction to her father’s assertion of being unable to prevail over his doubts (she is
“more shocked than ever” - N&S, 1995: 34) is the representative response to be expected from
any Anglican Victorian. Margaret refuses to acknowledge the ‘outrageous’ act that her father
has done and “she cannot sympathize with her father’s doctrinal doubts” (N&S, 1995: 34).
Margaret would like to believe that the entire experience was nothing more than a bad
dream and, surely not, the reality. The morning after Mr. Hale’s confession she asks herself if
maybe her father ceded to temptation and his actions where nothing more than the Devil’s
deeds: ‘Where, to what distance apart, had her father wandered, led by doubts which were to
her temptations of the Evil One?’ (N&S, 1993: 45). As we can see from Margaret’s intensive
thinking, confusion and denial, religious doubts were an extremely serious and disagreeable
matter during the Victorian Era. “To raise a doubt about a creed established by general
acceptance” was seen as “a direct injury to the general welfare” 5, accordingly, Mr. Hale’s
mutiny is pertinent because it epitomizes one of the aspects of the religious upheavals of the
nineteenth century.
5
J. A. Froude, The Oxford Counter-Reformation, as quoted in W. E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830 – 1870, New
Haven and London, 1957, p. 59

16
 The vicar of Helstone adheres to the Dissenting path of retirement after he had
formerly spared no effort to cope with the profession of silent obedience. He tells Margaret:

“It is not a month since the bishop offered me another living; [...] Margaret, I tried to do it; I tried to
content myself with simply refusing the additional preferment, and stopping quietly here – strangling
my conscience now, as I strained it before. [...] I have written to the bishop [...]. He has been most kind;
he has used arguments and expostulations all in vain – in vain. They are but what I have tried upon
myself, without avail.”

(N&S, 1995:36)

In the next chapter, Margaret acquaints her mother with her father’s Dissenting behavior
and Mrs. Hale ponders about what could have the bishop told to her husband: “Can’t the bishop
set him right?” (N&S, 1995: 45), she asks, thinking about if it was possible to persuade him to
‘abjure’ his doubts and continue to perform his duties of Anglican vicar.
Although Gaskell does not explain precisely for how long was Mr. Hale tormented by
his disbelief, over the novel Mr. Hale confesses about “my anxiety for years past, to know
whether I had any right to hold my living – my efforts to quench my smoldering doubts by the
authority of the holy Church from which I am to be shout out!” (N&S, 1995: 38), and he later
adds: “I must do what my conscience bids. I have borne long with self-reproach” (N&S,
1995:45). These could be viewed as additional proves of how tremendously painful and
struggling was the internal religious conflict that affected the Victorians. The stepping down
from the church led to a visible and powerful social stigmata, that is why only few clergyman
were willing to undergo it, while “the vast majority stayed uncomfortably where they were and
did their unhappy best to ignore the dogmas they disbelieved” (Eason, 1980: 33).

17
 Mrs. Hale addresses her thoughts to her daughter: “if your father leaves the Church, we
shall not be admitted into society anywhere. It will be such a disgrace to us!” (N&S, 1995: 45),
expressing her disagreement with her husband’s decision and the fear of any future ostracism.
Eventually, they all leave the Anglican South to avoid any social isolation (“It is a painful
thing, but it must be done” - N&S, 1995: 37). This decision, although at the moment appears
to be very difficult to accomplish, towards the end of the novel proves to be a well thought.
When Margaret goes back to Helstone, she meets some of her previous neighbors and some of
her father’s parishioners, who tell her that despite Mr. Hale’s decision, he still remained a much
respected, beloved and missed member of the community. Nonetheless, the negative reaction
her mother feared they would face is embodied by Mr. Lennox affirmations:

“Perhaps I have been wrongly informed. But I have been told, by his successor in the living – a clever,
sensible man, and a thoroughly active clergyman – that there was no call upon Mr. Hale to do what he
did, relinquish the living, throw himself and his family on the tender mercies of private teaching in a
manufacturing town; the bishop had offered him another living, it is true, but if he had come to
entertain certain doubts, he could have remained where he was, and so had no occasion to resign. But
the truth is, these country clergymen live such isolated lives – isolated, I mean from all intercourse with
men of equal cultivation with themselves, by whose minds they might regulate their own, and discover
when they were going either too fast or too slow – that they are very apt to disturb themselves with
imaginary doubts as to the articles of faith, and throw up certain opportunities of doing good for very
uncertain fancies of their own.”

(N&S, 1995: 380)

The social smirch and shunning that resigning vicars would be forced to contend with
and that Mr. Hale would have experienced if he had stayed in Helstone it was almost the same
dishonor that the Nonconformist had to struggle with for their heterodox and dissenting system
of belief. Mr. Hale, who has decided to forsake, becomes a Dissenter in the public eye because
he had outfaced the dogma. His faith in God appears to be intact; however, Mr. Hale doubts
certain obligations that are expected to be carried out by an Anglican minister.

But although he does not argue and doubt the existence or non-existence of a Supreme
18
Power, and he does not convert to any Dissenting congregation, he is still branded by the
society as a Dissenter. Although after his resignation he does not became involved in any
incompatible with his former creed or odd type of congregation, the fact that he moved to the
North, a place where dissent was exceedingly strong, automatically transformed him in a
person who was converted to a Dissenting creed in the public opinion.
Gaskell does not mention many details about her character’s religious doubts, yet she
makes Mr. Hale declare that that his doubts did not have a ground on religious faith, as other
famous fictional characters of the time6: “No! Not doubts as to religion; not the slightest injury
to that” (N&S, 1995: 35), on the contrary, his doubts were related to the principles and
organizations of the Church of Thirty - Nine Articles and, ergo, to swear upon the Act of
Uniformity (Easson, 1980: 34). Mr. Hale himself stated that for a possible acceptance for the
new living that was offered by the bishop, he would have been bound to “make a fresh
declaration of conformity to the Liturgy at my institution” (N&S, 1995: 36).
I agree with Easson’s explanation, due to the fact that Gaskell herself creates a powerful
parallel between her character and John Oldfield7. Mr. Hale reads Oldfield soliloquy to
Margaret, as a manner to support his own motives and thoughts. Nonetheless, Gaskell’s version
of the soliloquy was quoted from the work of Theophilus Lindsey, a former Anglican minister
who became a Unitarian priest. His book, ‘The apology of Theophilus Lindsey, M. A. on
resigning the vicarage of Catterick, Yorkshire’ (1774) was very well known at the time, being
reprinted many times over the nineteenth century. Easson goes even forward and states that
Theophilus Lindsey represented a possible inspiration for the fictional character of Mr. Hale
(Easson, 1980: 34). Moreover, he argues that behind Mr. Hale’s doubts there was a speck of
Unitarianism (Easson, 1980: 35).
The author’s father, William Stevenson, refused to be a minister because his moral
objections and he declined any payment for his ministerial duties. Easson emphasis the fact that
Stevenson never defied the Unitarian set of beliefs and, although he claims that this idea of his
is not supported by any other attested sources, he posits that Gaskell may have used her father’s
experience as a model for Mr. Hale.
6
See Chapter three: Paganism in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’
7 JohnOldfield was a former country preacher who presumably lived around 1627 – 1682. He was ordained to retire from his
rectory in Carsington, owing to the fact that he refused to swear faithfulness upon the Act of Uniformity.

19
 Religious dissent deeply influenced the author. Her mother, her aunt, her husband and
their closest friends were Unitarians, the same creed that she professed her entire life.
Unitarianism was a confession group which developed from Presbyterianism and attracted
many scholarships of the era. Unitarianism was built not only on the Christian creed, but also
on science, medicine and philosophy, gathering notions and theories asserted by Locke,
Newton or Hobbes. From the late eighteen century personalities that inspired Unitarianism, we
can name Theophilus Lindsey and Joseph Priestly. The main Unitarian belief was constituted
by the existence of a solely God and the refusal of the Holy Trinity. Although they accepted
the figure of Christ, they doubted His supernatural birth and only considered Him as an
example to be followed. Another important aspect of Unitarianism is the equality of women in
every domain, as Uglow states: “in the nineteenth century Unitarian women were as influential
as men in social reform” (Uglow, 1993: 360). Although Gaskell herself was very cautious
about separating her fiction from her religious beliefs, some Unitarian values permeated her
works, so the idea that behind Mr. Hale’s decision and character stands a Unitarian creed is
not that odd.

2.2 Bessy Higgins, a girl with ‘methodee fancies’

As I have said earlier, Mr. Hale’s character is not the only embodiment of the religious
crisis and changes from the novel. Bessy Higgins, Margaret’s friend, is portrayed as a very ill
and frail girl. She is the same age as Margaret, but from a different social class and a much
different future. Bessy is a member of the Milton’s working-class and she suffers from a very
common industrial disease (it was diagnosed in 1860, but the symptoms were known in the
industrial communities). After her mother died, Bessy worked in a cotton-mill, where she
inhaled ‘fluff’, provoking the disease that will eventually lead to her death.

20
 Although Gaskell never specifies exactly Bessy’s religion, we know that she was not an
Anglican and there are several hints that she may be a Methodist. Her father says that his
daughter has ‘methodee fancies’ (N&S, 1995: 90) and she is always quoting the Bible, a
Methodist peculiarity:

“‘Sometimes, when I’ve thought o’ my life, and the little pleasure I’ve had in it, I’ve believed that,
maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; “And the name of the star is
called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters
because they were made bitter.” One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied
long before for one: somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfillment; other ways it
seems all sent for nothing.’
(N&S, 1995: 137)

Longeway describes Bessy’s approach to the Bible as an escape from a cruel world into
the arms of a kinder one. This escapism, although it lasted for short periods of time, was a
manner to compensate the depressive tendencies (Longeway, 1990:2). During a conversation
with Margaret, she quotes Isaiah (62:4), expressing her wish to die because of the pains caused
by her disease:

“‘Well, Bessy, how are you? Better, I hope, now the wind has changed.’ ‘Better
and not better, if yo’ know what that means.’

‘Not exactly,’ replied Margaret, smiling.

‘I’m better in not being torn to pieces by coughing o’ nights, but I’m weary and tired o’ Milton, and
longing to get away to the land o’ Beaulah; and when I think I’m farther and farther off, my heart sinks,
and I’m no better; I’m worse.’”

(N&S, 1995: 89)

One of the several escapist characteristics described by Longeway and connected to

Bessy’s behavior was the “persistent peripheral consciousness” (Longeway, 1980:2). In order
to endure the pain and her terrific fate, she seeks relief in the Bible, dreaming that she will
encounter many fascinating events after her death: “I shall have a spring where I’m boun to,
and flowers, and amaranths and shining robes besides” (N&S, 1995: 73).
21
 In another chapter, she affirms that she is unable to renounce reading the Revelations:
“‘I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise [..] as in
Revelations? Many’s the time I’ve repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the
sound It’s as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too. No, I cannot give up Revelations. It
gives me more comfort than any other book i’ the Bible’” (N&S, 1995: 137 – 138)

Bessy’s father, Nicholas Higgins has some religious doubts of his own and they are very
different from Mr. Hale’s: he questions the existence of a Supreme Power. In the Victorian era,
mostly after Darwin’s theory appeared, the lack of faith in God or in any other deity was a
common thing. But this un-faith was usually well hidden, for avoiding any social isolation and
a great amount of people attended the church, although they had no belief. As Higgins states:

“‘There’s many and many a one wiser and scores better learned that I am around me, – folk who’ve had time to
think on these things, – while my time has had to be gi’en to getting my bread. Well, I see these people. Their
lives is pretty much open to me. They’re real folk. They don’t believe i’ the Bible, – not they.’”

(N&S, 1995: 226)

Pressed by the society, these people carried on attending the Church services and they
were abide to conduct themselves accordingly to the rules imposed by it, as Higgins points out:

“‘They may say they do, for form’s sake; but Lord, sir, d’ye think their first cry I’ th’ morning is, “What
shall I do to get hold on eternal life?” or “What shall I do to fill my purse this blessed day? Where shall I
go? What bargains shall I strike?”’”

(N&S, 1995:226)

22
2.3 Nicholas Higgins, the agnostic ahead of his time

Higgins believes in his own senses and he does not approve his daughter’s faith, yet he
accepts it because he realizes that it was her only way to cope with her disease.

Nonetheless, he does not show favoritism towards Margaret’s religious ideas to be

‘preached’ (N&S, 1995: 90-91) in his house. Nicolas disapproves and clashes with Margaret’s
solid religious mind. The girl considers him to be a good man, but she warns her father that
Mr. Higgins is an atheist and an infidel: “‘Papa – you must not wonder at what he says: he’s an
–––– I mean he does not believe in much of what we do.’” (N&S, 1995: 222).
Margaret’s opinion towards him does not change in the course of the novel and it
portrays the exact opinion every other man of the time would have had about him. But his lack
of faith comes from has a deeper understanding. Nicolas Higgins is an atheist who believes in
something, he is aware that faith keeps people going, but he does not believe in any religion or
religious representation. Therefore, he is an agnostic ahead of his time.

‘There’s many a time when I’ve thought I didna believe in God, but I’ve never put it fair out before me in
words, as many men do [….] I have looked round at after, to see if He heard me, if so be there was a He
[...]. There’s but one thing steady and quite i’ all this reeling world, and reason or no reason, I’ll cling to
that’”

(N&S, 1995: 227)

Notwithstanding, for defying the Victorian religious creeds – the most powerful
influence of time, he is considered to be a Dissenter.

“‘What I mean by belief just now, is a-thinking on sayings and maxims and promises made by folk yo’
never saw, about the things and the life yo’ never saw, nor no one else. Now, yo say these are true
things, and true sayings, and a true life. I just say, where’s the proof?’”

(N&S, 1995: 226)

23
2.4 Conclusions

In my opinion North and South presents a vivid and real world, whose characters are
inspired by the reality of the time. They encounter real problems and they fight with
themselves to find solutions. Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘vigorous social conscience’ covers not only
the working class and the industrial England. She was equally concerned about the loss of
religion and the position of women within Victorian society.

24
 CHAPTER THREE
Paganism in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’

3.0 Introduction

Thomas Hardy, born in Higher Bock Hampton, a small village in the parish of Stinsford
in the east part of Dorchester, Dorset, England, on 2nd of June 1840, was one of the most
important writers of the Victorian era. Although thorough his life, Hardy wrote poetry and
regarded himself mostly as a poet, his novels were the ones which brought him fame. His
writings were so successful and his characters gained the public’s hearts in such a manner, that
even now his novels are still a favorite choice among the readers. Two of his novels, ‘Tess of
the d’Urbervilles’ and ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ were present in the top 50 on the BBC's
survey ‘The Big Read.’ It must be said that Hardy has been and will be the centre of attention
and a field of interest for a myriad of literary critics, mostly due to the debates over his alleged
loss of faith and his reticence about his religious beliefs. He has been presented as a sceptic, a
disbeliever or free thinker, a peculiarity and an oddity (and thus a genius) in his Victorian age
(Schweik). Nonetheless, looking at his novels, one can easily see many references and allusions
to Biblical texts and to the church. In this chapter I will try to highlight the major spiritual
influences on Hardy’s writings after his alleged loss of religious faith and I will also try to show
that Hardy’s faith was not entirely lost; on the contrary, as I’ve mentioned in the first chapter,
the Positivist Church became an important part of his religious conceptions. For this aim to be
accomplished, I chose the novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” about which, I must say, that it is a
personal favorite.
In ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ Hardy presents some moral and ethical sets of beliefs that
could most likely replace the obsolete doctrine, creeds and norms of the established church and
Victorian society. Despite the fact that the book illustrates his everlasting respect for the forces
of nature, he comes to the conclusion that pagan nature could not successfully replace
Christian orthodoxy, because the organic consciousness Hardy provided it with was unable to
provide a detailed description of how or why something happens and how the human choice of
good or evil functions.
25
 Seen from another point of view, Hardy’s representation on nature is multi-leveled in
this novel.
Aside from his interest in pagan nature, Hardy pictured the natural, landscape and land
as an equivalent medium to the characters’ psychological and emotional moods and reactions.
On a disparate level, Hardy used the environment he created as a moral and intellectual
crucible in which his characters evolve and through the tribulations and vicissitudes they
experience. Another alternative religion that Hardy discarded and negatively presented was the
‘Neo-Christianity’, embodied by Angel Clare. Neo-Christianity is an Arnoldian-established
creed which promotes agnostic thinking, retaining in the same time a Christian code of
morality.
In this chapter I will argue that Tess’s tragedy is presented as the result of religious
orthodoxy and society, rather than a Heavenly Dispensation of Fate. Hardy’s philosophical
beliefs and their impact on his idea of tragedy will be enquired into this chapter. The last part of
this chapter will present my considerations over the fact that Hardy had stipulated his own
religion (the Religion of Humanity) as a suppliant for the dying religious and social norms of
his time. Hardy’s motif of ‘loving kindness’ is represented by Tess’s philanthropist proneness
along with the other principal precepts of Positivism as demonstrated by Tess’s character.

3.1 Paganism

One of Hardy’s first choices while exploring new religions was the Pagan nature and
its cult. In May 1877, he wrote: ‘I sometimes look upon all things in animate Nature as pensive
mutes’ (Florence Hardy, 1962:112). Two decades later, he acknowledges ‘In spite of myself I
cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery’ (F. Hardy, 1962:131).
Hardy quested in his animation of natural phenomena a representation of a permanent and
unavoidable human urge to resort to Nature to comprehend the concept of existence and the
universe. For Hardy, orthodox Christianity turned out to be withdrawn from daily life and
invalid in soothing human suffering. Hence, he aimed to create ‘a frame of acceptance’
(Robertson, 2003:43) to tolerate human suffering (Bonica, 1982:849).

26
 Stave (Stave, 1995:106) considers Hardy’s pagan religion more sympathetic towards
humans, since ‘the God-like creature’ looked down on the earth with ‘interest’, as Hardy’s
narrator states in Tess of the d’Urbervilles:
The sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, personal look, demanding the masculine
pronoun for its adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the
scene, explained the old-time heliolatrous in a moment.
One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky. The luminary was a golden-
haired, beaming, mild-eyed, God-like creature, gazing down in the vigor and intentness of youth upon
an earth that was of interest for him (Tess of the d’Urbervilles, 1960:109).

This scene reveals Hardy’s pursuit for an alternative religion to Christian dogma. As
claimed by Hardy, the religion of the solar deity was sometimes more generous and kind to
man, unlike the existing disciplines of secular science and Christian theology in Victorian
England, for the former diminishes the value of man in the universe, while the latter is able to
oppress the innocent with its harsh and punitive creed, as is the case for Tess. In the end, all
three systems are dissatisfying since pagan pantheism only gave humans rare recognition,
secular science undermined the significance of man, and orthodox Christianity condemned man
for involuntary committed sin.
Seeking a possible substitute to Christianity, Hardy considered using Angel Clare’s
heterodoxy as a means of expression to contrast Classical and pastoral paganism. As Bonica
affirms, Hardy associates with Angel’s agnostic heterodoxy as long as the last-mentioned
reflects Hardy’s zealous quest for a moral system that could replace the worn out Christian
orthodoxy8. Angel found his way in embracing Classical paganism, as Hardy’s narrator
records:
Once upon a time Angel had been so unlucky as to say to his father, in a moment of irritation, that it
might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece had been the source of the religion of modern
civilization, and not Palestine’ (Tess of the d’Urbervilles, 1960, 203).

8
Although Angel is not Hardy’s most favorite character in this novel.

27
 This description shows that Angel’s paganism is intellectual, whilst the rustics’ is
instinctive. During Angel’s stay in Brazil, he attains a state of self-realization as he tries to
judge Tess in the light of Hellenic principles of morality. As the narrator tells us,

He had persistently elevated Hellenic Paganism at the expense of Christianity; yet in that civilization an
illegal surrender was not an illegal disesteem. Surely then he might have regarded that abhorrence of
the un-intact state, which he had inherited with the creed of mysticism, as at least open to correction
when the result was due to treachery (TDU, 1960: 435).

at Talbothays, Angel engaged in reading profane books, a habit for which he is praised by the
narrator, for it freed his mind from desperation at no longer being capable to believe in the
particularities of Christian dogma.

Considering his position he became wonderfully free from the chronic melancholy which is taking hold
of the civilized races with decline of belief in a beneficent Power. For the first time of late years he could
read as his musings inclined him (TDU, 1960:152-153).

3.2 Angel Clare’s ‘neo-paganism’

After Angel starts using the Hellenic code of morality, he stops seeing Tess as a
temptress, and more as a victim – only then he wins the author’s consideration. Mixing his own
scholarly paganism with this rustic-pastoral paganism, he creates a balance that leads him to
perceive anew order of morality, which came from the animated nature. This religion was a
satisfying surrogate for Christianity:

Latterly he had seen only Life, felt only the great passionate pulse of existence, unwarped, uncontorted,
untrammeled by those creeds which futilely attempt to check what wisdom would be content to
regulate (TDU, 1960:203).

28
 But in the end, not even this religion could save Tess from being raped by Alec. Hardy
wonders, with a bitter tone:
But might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? Where was the providence of her simple
faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talkin or he was
pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked (TDU, 1960:90-91).

Hardy’s attraction to heliolatry was an attempt to find comfort and benevolence through
nature, nature becoming a more tolerant Mother for Tess. But the expected comfort never
comes, and Tess’s pagan sexuality gets her into trouble, leaving her soul empty and her mind
concerned: “I shouldn’t mind learning why – why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust
alike” (TDU, 1960:162).
We might say that Hardy’s attitude towards Angel’s ‘neo-paganism’ is quite ambivalent:
although he agrees it, seeing it as a manner of freeing Angel’s intellect from the fading
orthodox Christianity; he condemns it for being unrealistic (Bonica, 1982:861). Before
marrying Tess, Angel saw her as an idol, picturing her as a deity, but after discovering the
truth about her lost virginity, his neo-paganism is not able to endure the new situation: “He
loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the impassioned
thoroughness of her feeling for him” (TDU, 1960:250).
Nonetheless, Angel’s religion is shaken to its grounds at the first serious situation, the
moment when Tess tells him about how she lost her innocence:

“But you do not forgive me?”

“O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case! You were one person; now you are another. My God-
how can forgiveness meet such a grotesque prestidigitation as that!”

(TDU, 1960:291-293)

Angel’s idealization of Tess might be a need to supply the absence of God from his life,
and when he discovers that she proves herself fallible, all his dreams and beliefs are shattered.
In spite of his Stoicism, Angel is baffled after this discovery: “This is the chief thing: be not
perturbed,’ said the Pagan moralist. That was just Clare’s opinion. But he was perturbed”
(TDU, 1960: 330).

29
 The moment when Angel Clare reads the announcement about the agricultural
investments and opportunities Brazil had to offer, he starts thinking about Brazil as an escape
land, where he and Tess would be free and no one would suspect or question her past.

Brazil somewhat attracted him as a new idea. Tess could eventually join him there, and perhaps in that
country of contrasting scenes and notions and habits the conventions would not be so operative which
made life with her seem impracticable to him here (TDU, 1960: 232)

Tess herself thinks about another land, which could be more forgiven about her
unwillingly mistakes, saving her relationship with Angel. ‘She might have added besides: On
an Australian upland or Texan plain, who is to know or care about my misfortunes or to
reproach me or you’ (TDU, 1960: 311). It is visible that Hardy portrays the environment and
landscapes as linked parts from his characters’ lives, vital character development. Tess’s
relocations are also important, because every place has a symbolic meaning: She leaves Marlott
and goes to Trantridge, depicting the depraved principles and standards of the newly rich,
represented by Alec.
In the same time, Chase, with its Pagan and Druidical connotations, is presented as a
sacred and ancient place lacked the Christian providence; therefore, it sealed Tess’s faith (it
was there where Alec deflowered her. ‘Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above
them rose the primeval yews and oaks of the Chase, in which were poised gentle roosting birds
in their last nap’ (TDU, 1960: 89). As a contrast, the Talbothays farm was the place where Tess
evolved in a psychological manner:

On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her
flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would
intensify natural processes around her till they seemed part of her own story (TDU, 1960:181)

For Hardy, nature functions as a reflective medium, connected with his characters’
moods and feelings. Brazil becomes a geographical metaphor for freedom, a place that shows
how ‘local’ and narrow are Victorian norms.

30
 The place where Tess has chosen to flee with Angel after she stabbed Alec is no other
than Stonehenge – a place no ordinarily selected -, with its mythical connections and
associations to pagan sacrifice, a place used by Hardy to symbolize her victimization by the
flawed and malfunctioning social and religious principles of the time. Hence, Tess falling
asleep near the ‘Stone of Sacrifice’ in the heathen temple of ‘Stone Henge’ (TDU, 1960:502-
504) is a powerful metaphor, picturing the way society victimized her.
We could say that Hardy created the landscape for this novel not only as a quest in
finding a religion that could replace orthodox creed, but also to consolidate his characters’
spiritual in intellectual evolution.
Bonaparte considers that Hardy’s main aim behind this classic allegory was to inspect
and analyze ‘the crisis of faith’ in his time, mostly the Christian creed in the Dispensation of
Heavenly Fate (Bonaparte, 1999:416). Hardy used fate in this novel as something partly man-
made, presenting Tess as a provider for her family against everything, replacing her father. Even
more, Bonaparte postulates that Hardy employed the Greek myth of Persephone (in the novel,
Tess is referred to as the “daughter of soil”), which becomes an idea projecting his dark
expectations of Tess.
I do agree with Bonaparte’s opinion that Hardy insisted on the paradigm of the Classical
ideal where, on the ruins of a fallen civilization, a new one is built, trying to convince people to
recreate with the Victorian England (Bonaparte, 1999: 418). This need of social revolution is
another example of Hardy’s affiliation to the Comtean and Saint-Simonian ideas about the
importance of the evolutionary role of time.

3.3 Tess, the ‘boundary breaker’

Hardy created Tess as an exception. She was meant to push the boundaries - ‘she did not
know that she had been made to break a social law’ (TDU, 1960: 292) -, and to promote the
concept of ‘lovingkindness’. She preaches Alec her belief in the Positivist idea of philanthropy
and she has the courage to disbelief when she considers that religion isn’t enough to sooth her
mind and soul: ‘She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters,
theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct’

31
 Hardy’s representation of Tess is one of a social reformist, a person who will inevitable
be persecuted by the ruthless social and religious norms of Victorian England. She has a keen
sense of morals, but her creed is based on love and compassion for others. In the scene where the
workers tell the story of Jack Dollop, a former dairy worker that seduced a dairymaid, the
narrator has an elegiac tone, dramatizing the amusing scene, while Tess evocates her own
memories: ‘Yes, there was the pain of it. This question of a woman telling her story – the
heaviest of crosses to herself – seemed but amusement to others. It was as if people should laugh
at martyrdom’ (TDU, 1960: 231).
If we return our attention to Bonaparte’s claim about the connection between Tess and
Persephone, it becomes obvious that they both share the symbol of a prosperity provider, a
‘gift’ attained after a horrible sacrifice: the loss of virginity. Both of them were abducted and
raped (Tess by Alec and Persephone by Hades); both of them were sacrificed to bring
prosperity (the former for her family, after they lost Prince, the family’s horse and the latter to
the earth). Also, Bonaparte posits that Hardy pictures the May Pole dancers as pagan
characters, reviving a Pagan ritual – another resemblance to Persephone’s myth (Bonaparte,
1999: 8).
Moreover, Bonaparte argues that Hardy portrayed Alec as an analogy for Hades. He
bases his convictions on Hardy’s description of Alec: ‘He had an almost swarthy complexion’
(TDU, 1960: 44), ‘as Hades in the Hymn is depicted as “dark-haired”’ (Homer, cited by
Bonaparte, 1999: 422); also, he sees another analogy between Alec and Hades in the moment
when the former enters through ‘the door of her ancestral sepulcher’ and he pretends to be
dead, only to taunt Tess: ‘In the dusk she had not noticed it before, and would hardly have
noticed it now but for an odd fancy the effigy moved’ (TDU, 1960: 464). This scene may
suggest that the death was Alec’s kingdom, much like the Greek god (Bonaparte, 1999: 320).
But I must note an important exception between Hardy’s character and Bonaparte’s
interpretation: The scene where Alec compares Tess to Eve, proving his evil thoughts towards
her: ‘You are Eve and I am the old other One come to tempt you in the disguise of an inferior
animal. I used to be quite up in that scene of Milton’s when I was theological’ (TDU, 1960:
445). When he described Talbothay’s, Hardy used biblical allusion, braiding them in an ironical
manner with Classical tropes, only to indicate that the utopian idyll survived due to the fact that
it was isolated from modernity.

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 In Bonaparte’s view, Angel Clare was the representation of Apollo, playing his harp
‘she undulated upon the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like
breezes through her’ (TDU, 1960: 158).
The most sublime act of self-sacrifice from Tess is presented when Alec promises to
take care of her brothers and sisters, if she agrees to follow him. And because Tess loved her
family, she agreed, sacrificing her flesh to provide for them: “‘About the children – your
brothers and sisters; I’ve been thinking of them.” ‘Tess’s heart quivered – he was touching her
in a weak place’ (TDU, 1960: 446). The last selfless act of Tess was killing Alec:

“Still I owed it to you, and to myself, Angel. I feared long ago, when I struck him on the mouth with my
glove, that I might do it someday for the trap he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you
through me. He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any more” (TDU, 1960,
491).

Hardy considered altruism to be an evolved form of the egoism, because the latter seeks
individual survival, while the former wishes the survival of the group. Also Comte thought that
altruism was the highest state of moral and social uplift, stimulating the individual to work for
the outliving of his society. This positivist dogma is obvious in Tess’s fiercely will to ensure
that her small society (her family) will survive. Comte noticed the evolutionary impact of time
as a cause for shifting from the ‘theological’ and ‘metaphysical’ epochs to the ‘sociological’ era
(Bonica, 1982: 181).

3.4 Tess, the positivist heroine

As a Positivist heroine, Tess overcomes the ‘theological’ era as it was insufficient to her
redemption; hence she rejects orthodox Christianity as she accepted her husband’s intellectual
dogma. When Alec accuses her of being an infidel (‘“You seem to have no religion – perhaps
owing to me’”), she replies: “‘but I have. Though I don’t believe in anything supernatural”’
(TDU, 1960: 408).

33
 Using Tess, Hardy projects to the reader his personal belief in the doctrine of primitive
Christianity on which Positivism was based, concentrated in Tess’s words ‘I believe in the
spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my dear husband’ (my emphasis) (TDU, 1960:
409).
In spite of Angel’s intellectual creed mimics the Positivist view, his so claimed
Positivist evolution is compromised by his adhesion to the orthodox Christian code of morality,
which position him with the Arnoldian ‘Neo-Christianity’ more than with Positivist thinking.
Notwithstanding the fact that pagan Nature rendered Tess innocent, it lacks the ability to
triumph over the tyrant religious and social norms that ‘convicted’ her as guilty. Therefore,
Hardy made Tess to adhere to Positivist altruism as a moral doctrine that could transform her
into the initiator of her family’s outliving.
Although the Darwinian Theory believes that the relations amongst all the individuals
within a single species are governed by ruthless competition, Hardy considered those relations
to be guided by love and compassion, particularly when it came to people. And for that reason,
he adopted wholeheartedly the Positivist creed of altruism; he admired its goal to attain the
survival of the group. In his view, our planet does not bring happiness to humans, because
happiness itself was something governed by selfishness and individualism. The true happiness
could only be attained through altruism and intellectual edification. Hardy’s Tess was a model
of altruism, a person willing to accept that other could not understand her pain, nor her struggle,
although she tried every time to understand those around her.

But Tess did not think of this; she took everything as her deserts, and hardly opened her mouth. The
firmness of her devotion to him was indeed almost pitiful; quick-tempered as she naturally was, nothing
that he could say made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not provoked; thought no evil
treatment of her. She might just now have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a self-seeking
modern world. (TDU, 1960: 308-309)

Yes, I truly consider that religion was important for Hardy. I think that he could not
conceive a world without a Creator, a Supreme Being whose only care was the welfare of
humans. Hardy was a believer seeking for a religion, seeking a name and a creed for his God.
He saw his novels as a way to test his theories and that gave his characters consistency and

34
made them seem alive.
His characters were not plain, and one cannot consider them to be pure good or pure
evil. Although both Angel and Tess are firstly described as Positivist, Angel lacks altruism and
philanthropy (his thinking and behavior is representative for Neo – Christianity). He refuses to
love Tess because of a sin that she was not culpable for. After his staying in Brazil, he changes
his mind and starts seeing Tess as she should have been seen (an innocent woman, a living,
breathing person, and not an ideal) and he comes back for her:

But he could not get on. Speech was as inexpressive as silence. But he had a vague consciousness of one
thing, though it was not clear to him later; that his original Tess had spiritually ceased to recognise the
body before him as hers – allowing it to drift, like a corpse upon the current, in a direction dissociated
from its living will (TDU, 1960: 484).

3.5 Paganism vs. Positivism

As I’ve said earlier, in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ Hardy’s portrays two unorthodox
religions, one represented by the paradigmatic Tess, who elevates herself to the rank of a
Positivist priestess with her ‘loving kindness’ and Angel Clare, who represented Matthew
Arnold’s ‘Neo-Christianity’, with his incompatible mixture of agnostic thinking and an
orthodox creed of morality. Through the latter, Hardy tries to demonstrate the fact that the
Arnoldian doctrine is nothing more than an ideal and utopian concept; it functions on an
intellectual level but does not work on a moral one:

‘It was the third day of the estrangement. Some might risk the odd paradox that with more animalism
he would have been a nobler man. We do not say it. Yet Clare’s love was doubtless ethereal to a fault,
imaginative to impracticability’ (TDU, 1960:312).

Tess’s confession shook Angel Clare’s intellectual and moral ideals of Neo-Christianity,
putting them to test, a test which they failed. Soon after, Tess implores him to remain his wife
only in name and he starts thinking about his attitude towards Church:

‘Within the remote depths of his constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general, there lay
hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a soft loam, which turned the edge of everything

35
 that attempted to traverse it. It had blocked his acceptance of the Church; it blocked his acceptance of
Tess.’ (TDU, 1960:308).

The Victorian religious and social norms were so definitive and commanding, that they
were governing Angel Clare’s thinking despite his agnostic ideas. A good example for this
affirmation can be found in the scene where Angel worries about the future shame and
stigmata that would stain their children, if they had any: ‘Besides, that’s not all the difficulty;
it lies in another consideration – one bearing upon the future of other people than ourselves.
Another important scene is set at Angel’s parents’ house, where the narrator paints
Angel’s slender and unfit code of morality as an outcome of his subjection to the hegemonic
customs:

‘This night the woman of his belittling deprecation was thinking how great and good her husband was.
But over them both there hung a deeper shade than the shade which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the
shade of his own limitations. With all his attempted independence of judgment this advanced and well-
meaning young man, a sample product of the last five and twenty years, was yet the slave to custom
and conventionality when surprised back into his early teachings.’ (TDU, 1960:338)

3.6 Conclusions

Behind the tragic story of an unlucky girl, Tess of the d’Urbervilles presents Hardy’s
true beliefs and opinions about the Church, the orthodox Christianity and the patriarchal
Victorian society, where women were treated as inferior (And Alec does not let Tess forget this
hierarchy: ‘Remember, my lady, I was your master once! I will be your master again. (TDU,
1960:423). Finally, he lets the reader to conclude that Positivism and its Religion of Humanity
is the most suitable religion for mankind, although it does not save Tess from her tragic faith.
Hardy understood that religion, as flawed as it was, was a necessity for humans.

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 CHAPTER FOUR

Hate, Evangelicalism, and The religion of love in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane

Eyre’

4.0 About the novel

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1816, in a family of six
children. She was not the only writer from the family - both her sisters Emily and Anne wrote
and they even published together. In May 1846 the three sisters self-financed the publication of
a common collection of poems under the pen names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The
pseudonyms disguised the sisters' sex while preserving their initials; therefore Charlotte was
Currer Bell. "Bell" was not chosen without a reason; it represented the middle name of
Haworth's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls whom Charlotte would later marry, and "Currer" was the
surname of Frances Mary Richardson Currer, the founder of their school.
This chapter is dedicated to Charlotte Brontë’s first published novel, ‘Jane Eyre’.
Through this writing, Charlotte Bronte uttered several issues of the Victorian Era, as class and
gender inequality, race prejudices or colonialism. But the primary discourse of the novel is
Christianity and the problems attached to it. Throughout the novel, Jane strives with her
dilemmas; she struggles between moral duty and love. Under the aegis of Jane’s experiences,
Brontë weaves a religious cloth, where she presents her opinion about Christianity and the
Evangelical Movement through characters like Mr. Brocklehurst or Helen Burns. In the end,
Jane will reject each system of beliefs that she encounters, creating her own principles and ideas
about faith.
The novel was a great success and it was well received both by the public and the critics.
It was described as an “Autobiography”, although the author never really cleared what was the
autobiographical element; both her career as a governess and the fact that she grew up in a
clerical household – her father was an Irish Anglican priest -, may have influenced her in writing
‘Jane Eyre’. But this autobiographical is still intensely debated, critics and scholars trying to

37
discover how much of the novelist’s life story was hidden behind the characters or the action of
the novel.

4.1 Mrs. Reed, the woman whose religion was ‘hate’

The opening chapters of the novel portray a world where abuse of power and insidious
acts of cruelty are common. Jane Eyre’s childhood’s experiences are presented with repulsion,
as the author disagrees completely with the harsh methods Mrs. Reed used to raise her. The
repulsive and nasty behavior of John and Augusta Reed, the hateful environment, the “Red
Room” and the continuous chides of John, who liked to remind her that she was an orphan,
made Jane bitter and angered.
Shapiro, in his article ‘In defence of Jane Eyre’ (Shapiro, 1968: 685), postulates that
Charlotte Bronte emphasized the close relationship between Mrs. Reed and Brocklehurst, the
preservers of the social order and the foes of change, freedom or openness, only to display the
similarities between this two hateful characters. The first pages of the novel make clear the fact
that the Reeds do not like Jane, because she does not fit into their standards and she refuses to
keep up appearances, showing her true feelings. Jane describes Mrs. Reed’s attitude:

". . . regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from
Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire a
more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner,-something lighter,
franker, more natural as it were-she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented,
happy, little children."

(JE, 1969:1)

The irony is that they were expecting to see Jane hiding behind a ‘coat of paint’ (Shapiro, 1968:
658) to become more natural. Mrs. Reed’s aversion towards her comes from the fact that
although Jane was a child, she did not act like one, or at least, according to the child typology
the lady had in mind. In her world, society had set strict standards for every member, even for
the youngest ones; therefore they ought to comply with them. One time, when Jane dares to ask
what she had done wrong, Mrs. Reed replies coldly:

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 ‘'Jane, I don't like cavilers or questioners, besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up
her elders in that manner. Be seated some-where; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent'"

(J-E, 1969:2)

It is more than obvious that the most irritating aspect for the author in these first pages
is the constant idea that everyone must comply to the same ‘figure’. Mrs. Reed tries to impose
an identity to Jane, in an attempt to destroy her individuality. Hence, when Jane is left in the
‘red- room’ and she desperately cries, Mrs. Reed calls her a ‘precocious actress’: “She sincerely
looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity” (JE,
1969: 16). The only relief Jane feels is when Mr. Lloyd, the apothecary, comes to attend to her.
She felt comforted not only because she was not alone anymore, but mostly due to the fact that
he was a ‘stranger’, “an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and related to Mrs. Reed” (JE,
1969: 17)
Everyone in Mrs. Reed’s house embraced her vision, therefore even the servants
considered Jane to be “a tiresome, ill-conditioned child”, “a sort of infantile Guy Fawkes”. Not
even Abbot pities her, because she is “a little toad” (JE, 1969: 26-27). There is no doubt, Jane is
alone. Her only friend is her doll “human beings must love something, and in the dearth of
worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded
graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow” (JE, 1969: 30-31).

4.2 Mr. Brocklehurst’s Evangelicalism

The fact that Jane ‘worships’ an inanimate object (Shapiro, 1968: 659) is not strange,
though it may seem so; it is her only comfortable alternative. The organized religion,
represented by Mr. Brocklehurst, provides no compassion. Mrs. Reed offers a
‘recommendation’ that although appears to influence Jane’s future (a liar and a deceitful) in
Mr. Brocklehurst’s school, does not change his attitude. He is untouched by human feelings.
Mr. Brocklehurst is the supervisor of a boarding school for orphaned girls, Lowood
Institute, where Jane is sent to study. His appearance could be frightening for a child, with his
“grim face”, a big nose, prominent teeth, and with a face with “harsh and prim” lines,
nevertheless, his looks are not randomly chosen, as they complete his hypocritical attitude and

39
his cruel and greedy behavior. In Jane's eyes he is a "black pillar" and a "stony stranger" (JE,
1969: 34). Mr. Brocklehurst is an adept of Evangelicalism, but, as Brontë depicts him, his
actions are entirely un-Christian.
In Chapter VII he required that one of the girls, Julia Sevem, who had a beautiful curly
hear, to have immediately her hair cut off. He considers that removing every means of vanity
and demoralizing them, will succeed what Mrs. Reed was trying: the destruction of
individuality.
‘"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—what is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma’am, curled—curled
all over?" And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so."It is Julia
Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.

"Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and
principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable
establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?""Julia’s hair curls naturally," returned Miss
Temple, still more quietly.

"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature: I wish these girls to be the children of Grace: and
why that abundance? I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely,
modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl’s hair must be cut off entirely "I have a Master to serve
whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach
them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly
apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself
might have woven: these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of—"Mr. Brocklehurst was
here interrupted; three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room.’ (JE, 1969: 59)

Charlotte did not use ‘Jane Eyre’ to explore religious doubts. She considered religion to
be more than a simple religious establishment, improperly portrayed by conventionality or the
maintenance of the status quo. Shapiro discusses the obvious spiritual values that the novel
emphasis on and he argues that they are connected to moral and human values (Shapiro, 1968:
684).

Despite everything Mrs. Reed had done to make her ‘behave’, Jane kept her spirit free
and it may be considered that this freedom of thinking was exactly the catalyses for Mr.
Brocklehurst’s ‘explosions’.

40
 As presented in the fragment below, Jane does not hold back her true thoughts, although
she realizes that her honesty could bring her problems.

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where
the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer. "And

what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?" "No,
sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health
and not die.”

(JE, 1969: 34)

While the first two answers are obviously remembered from lessons and Bible study,
the last answer, honest and engaging, presents her true nature. Continuing the dialogue,
Jane states that she has no interest in reading the psalm, as she prefers the “Revelations and the
Book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel [....] and some parts of Kings […] and Job and Jonah”
(JE, 1969: 35) – all stories suited for adults, as they are difficult, apocalyptic and full of
suffering and redemption.
Mr. Brocklehurst concludes that she has a ‘heart of stone’ and starts describing his son,
holding him up as an example for proper piety. In his vision, the fact that his son wished ‘to be
a little angel here below’ - he gets gingerbread nuts every time he uses the phrase (JE, 1969:
36-37) - is a proof that he is a good Christian and a very well raised child.

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 Both Mrs. Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst share the same vision about Christianity; in their
conception, the central doctrine preached by Christianity is ‘humility’ (better said,
humiliation… of others) and ‘consistency’, instead of compassion, forgiveness and charity:

"'consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arrangement
connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations,
hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants'"
(JE, 1969: 38-39)

Shapiro states that under these circumstances, Lowood was nothing more than the
‘institutionalized extension of Gateshead Hall’. I agree with his opinion, in addition, I would
say that Mr. Brocklehurst’s school is more successful than Mrs. Reed’s house in destroying
sprits. Taking advantage on the fact that all the girls are orphan, he has established a terror
regime, where the ‘individual is reduced to the most common denominator’ (Shapiro, 1968:
687). The girls are called by their last name, hence losing their gender. Mr. Brocklehurst's
attitude becomes contagious, and Miss Temple, the pleasant supervisor, starts showing the
same hardness. This inside ugliness changes also her appearance, like a stain that stretches
more and more:

“Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before
her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of
that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and
her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.”

(JE, 1969: 77)

From the moment she steps into the school, Jane tries without success to avoid the
headmaster’s gaze. But Mr. Brocklehurst follows Mrs. Reed’s example and makes Jane the
centre of all eyes. She becomes “an interloper and an alien” while he the other girls are advised

42
to shun her. But Mr. Brocklehurst’s religion is not the only one that makes Jane turn away.
There is also Helen Burns and her ‘other worldliness’.

4.3 Helen Burns and the religion of love

Helen Burns is a girl from Lowood Institute who befriends Jane. She is portrayed as a
saintly little girl, but Jane refuses to follow her example and rejects her advice. When she sees
Helen undergoing a punishment, Jane is shocked. She does not understand how Helen can
remain so docile and she even affirms that the girl may be living in an alternative world:
"I have heard of day-dreams-is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure
they do not see it-her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can
remember, I believe; not at what is really present."

(JE, 1969: 62)

Analyzing from outside their circle is not that difficult to understand Jane’s standpoint
and her reaction. Their world is based on fakery, hate, lies and greed and from such an
environment there could be only two possible outcomes: a person who adopts the doctrine of
turning the other cheek all her life or a person who fights back. Helen is a part of the former
and she has Jane friendship, but she cannot gain her respect. Although Helen may appear to be
the portrayal of a saintly ideal, Jane had learned an important lesson from the Reeds: there is no
saint, only humans trying to cope with a hostile world. Jane’s view is different:
"If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would
have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow
worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am
sure we should-so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again"
(JE, 1969:69)

Helen tries to convince her that such is unchristian, and that she will eventually learn
different.
Helen helps Jane, but she cannot help herself. When Mr. Brocklehurst made an example
of Jane and compelled her to stand on a stool in the middle of the class, Helen came to her
friend, although she was also grounded by Miss Scatcherd, condemned to a dinner with bread
43
and water. When Helen leaves Jane’s side, the latter starts crying “Now I wept: Helen Burns was
not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned my-self, and my tears watered the
boards” (JE, 1969: 83).

I consider that Helen’s doctrine is born from the need to believe in something better that
she already experienced and Jane has no such need. A religious system of beliefs is not sufficient
for the latter of the girls, because she is not willing to accept an idealistic afterlife full of joy,
after a life of sorrow. Moreover, Jane is a pragmatic person; therefore this belief in the existence
of a better life after death is meaningless if this life is one of suffering and pain.

Jane has the courage to express and accept her weaknesses and she confesses Helen her
own doctrine: the doctrine of love sacrifices.
“’I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me, I would rather die
than live-I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you,
or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm
broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest,-‘“

(JE, 1969: 84-85).

One beautiful described moment is represented by the death of Helen. Charlotte was
careful enough to transmit emotion, but also to keep the characters, Jane and Helen, in their
different worlds. Although she suffers, Helen considers death to be a salvation, remaining
faithful to her beliefs, while Jane feels that the situation was unfair. Helen’s last words render a
coronation of the ideals that made her who she was; she now finds the compassion she sought
all her life as she meets God.
After Jane sneaks in Helen’s room in a desperate need to see her, she fathoms out a very
calm Helen. This reconciliation with the inevitable death is a strange element for Jane:

‘I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead you must be sure and not grieve: there is
nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it
is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he
is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities
or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.’

44
 (JE, 1969: 95)

Furthermore, even with her last breaths, Helen still continues to convince Jane that her
religion is the right way for everyone’s soul. Her words are peaceful and full of wisdom and
benevolence, even when Jane doubts the existence of a God:

‘But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?' 'I believe;
I have faith: I am going to God.'
'Where is God? What is God?'
'My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide
wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him,
reveal Him to me.'
'You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and that our souls can get to it when we
die?'
'I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without
any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me’
(JE, 1969: 96 – 97)

In the next morning, Jane is found with her arm around Helen’s neck, as she did not
want to let her friend alone.

4.4 Conclusions

Thorough the novel, Jane discovers herself. She is no atheist, nor agnostic. She believes
in God, in a Christian God, but she refuses to follow a specific cult, although she encounters
various doctrines. Not even when she meets St. John Rivers, whom she started admired and, at
one point, considered to marry. Brontë created a strong character that, in the end, is able to find
her middle ground. Her spiritual understanding does not demand retreat from everyday world
and it is not based on oppression, like Mr. Brocklehurst’s.

45
46
 CHAPTER FIVE

Christianity as an example for humanity in ‘The life of our Lord’

5.0 Introduction

The portrayals of official religion in Victorian fiction, almost always display a sense of
strain - a skepticism about religion's value, or about precisely what features of religious
institutions need correction - even if that strain scarcely ever proceeds to an open conflict with
faith itself. This type of strain is obvious in Dickens’ works, who, although is known as the most
magnificent Christian of Victorian novelists, he constantly characterizes clergymen as hypocrite
and charlatans, and, more importantly, makes it incisively clear that God is not present in the
world and uninvolved in his creation. This chapter is dedicated to Dickens and his religious
doubt, openly expressed on few novels, and how it was transformed into the grounds of a deeper
faith.
Charles Dickens (Charles John Huffam Dickens), born in Portsmouth, on the 7 th February
1812, was considered ‘the literary colossus of his age’ and one of the most prolific writers of the
time, with 15 novels, five novellas and many more short stories and non-fiction articles. He
was much appreciated for his humor, satire, realism, social criticism and keen observation of
character, but also for his prose style. His first published work was ‘The Pickwick Papers’, a
monthly serial publication from April 1839 to November 1837. His next notable work, ‘The
adventures of Oliver Twist’, followed shortly after, also published as a monthly serial in
Bentley's Miscellany, from February 1837 and to April 1839. Almost year after year, Dickens
published another novel, all in monthly or weekly series9. Among the most widely known are:
‘David Copperfield’ (1849 – 1850), ‘Bleak House’ (1852-1853), ‘A tale of two cities’ (1859),
‘Great expectations’ (1860-1861) and ‘Our mutual friend’ (1864-1865).

9
With only one exception, the novella ‘A Christmas Carol’, published London by Chapman & Hall in 1843

47
Leo Tolstoy10 and Feodor Dostoyevsky11 characterized Dickens as ‘that great Christian writer’
(although in his works he expressed distaste regarding the Church clergy, whom he considered
responsible to acknowledge and admit the value of intellectual study and investigation into
issues of faith and use it progressively to restore harmony between traditional beliefs and
contemporary study) and Dickens made clear his point of view that “nothing is discovered
without God’s intention and assistance, and I suppose every new knowledge of His works that is
conceded to man to be distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves” (Colledge,
2012:175).
Dickens’ son, Henry Fielding Dickens, referred to his father as someone who ‘possessed
deep religious convictions’ and Colledge described the writer as a professing Christian
(Colledge, 2012:24) and, although Dickens showed an interest to Unitarian Christianity in the
1840s, he asserted that the author ‘never strayed from his attachment to popular lay
Anglicanism’.
In this chapter I will discuss about Dickens’ religious work, The Life of our Lord, a short
book about the life of Jesus Christ, which was written as a manner to inculcate his faith to his
children and family.

5.1 About the story

On January 22, 1934 in London, an article appeared in The Times with the title “A
Manuscript of Dickens: ‘The Life of Our Lord’ to be Published” (Times January 22, 1934)
which introduced what should have been a significant accompaniment to both the Dickens
writings and its corresponding body of criticism. As it was, however, TLOL’s literary value was
largely overlooked by an emphasis on its complex publication history and new contentious
biographical information disclosed around the same time. These state of things, combined with
the childlike simplicity intrinsic to his project, made the text of the manuscript to be mostly
overshadowed.

10
Sally Ledger, Holly Furneaux, (2011), "Charles Dickens in Context", Cambridge University Press. p. 318.
11
Cedric Thomas Watts (1976). "The English novel". Sussex Books. p. 55

48
 The article from The Times appeared one month after death of Sir Henry Fielding
Dickens, Dickens’ last surviving son, and included the following extract from his will:

I give and bequeath to my wife the original manuscript of my father’s “The Life of Our Lord,” which was
bequeathed to my aunt, Georgina Hogarth, in my father’s will, and given by her to me, to hold on the
following trusts:—Being his son, I have felt myself constrained to act upon my father’s expressed desire
that it should not be published, but I do not think it right that I should bind my children by any such
view, especially as I can find no specific injunction against such publication.

(Times January 22, 1934)

He considered that he had fulfilled his commitment to his father’s wishes, so he

relinquished the control of the manuscript to his heirs and family, liberating them from any
responsibility or connection to the original ‘injunction’. His will continues with further
instructions, placed in case they were willing to publish the manuscript. A column from The
New York Times, under the headline “Family Votes to Publish Dickens The Life of Our Lord,”
was printed a day before the London announcement and it referred to Sir Henry obvious desire
to publish his father’s short story:

“Sir Henry, it is understood, wished the work to be published, as he felt that thousands of children
throughout the world should be allowed to share in it. Yet he felt that he, personally, was bound by his
father’s expressed desire that it not be published. “

(New York Times January 21, 1934)

In her book, “Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England”, Oulton affirms that the
author might have “struggled with the dogmatic aspect of religion, but he refused overtly to
target one faith system in his novels, aware that his audience comprised a diversity of believers”
(Oulton, 2003:2).

49
 As a successful salesman and businessman, he was aware that it speaking his mind about
religion and specific denominations could alienate one or more groups of readers; therefore his
religious criticism was somehow vague, without a specific target, but undeniable present. This
vagueness led to the idea of an unclassifiable Dickensian Christianity.
Although writers of his era acknowledged Dickens as a Christian writer, academics and
critics debated the particular Christian creed in his work. Until 1934, this debate discussed
the possible doctrines Dickens’ alleged to, or if he alleged to any. Pointing to a lack of
consistency and an absence of a unified Christian belief system underwriting his fiction, these
critics were unable to conclusively classify Dickens’s specific version of Christianity as
displayed in his works. There were important critics, such as Phillip Collins, who considered that
Dickens simply dodged the more complicated ecclesiastical and theological questions of (his)
Christianity in his fiction, asserting that “in his religion, as in the rest of his life and work,
Dickens was lacking in intellectual rigor. He naively skirted the difficulties he found in the
Bible, by the simple device of writing off the Old Testament, and he seems to have been almost
unaware of those disputes about Christian Evidences which made ‘honest doubt’ so familiar to
his generation”12. Oulton contradicts him, emphasizing on the beautiful portrayal of his
knowledge of New Testament in The Life of Our Lord and the convolutedness of his Evangelical
satires (Oulton, 2003:23).

5.2 Another religious view

The Life of Our Lord provides a different religious view. This fiction is not Unitarian,
nor Evangelical, and it clearly pictures Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Besides presenting His
miracles, Dickens apprises his children that “conducting His Disciples at last out of Jerusalem
as far as Bethany, He blessed them, and ascended in a cloud to Heaven, and took His place at
the right hand of God” (TLOL, 1999:118).

12
As quoted in Oulton (2003:23)

50
 Oulton considers The Life of Our Lord to be a reaction against the more stringent
doctrines of evangelicalism, considering Dickens started writing it in 1846, being disappointed
with the greater part of organized religion: “in [TLOL], he had stressed Christ’s immediacy and
his relationship to human beings” and while it was “liberal in intent, this book certainly does
not provide, as has been claimed, evidence of Unitarian belief” (Oulton, 2003: 32) or a specific
similarity or empathy for any one of the evangelical dissenting factions. Dickens’ work
centers on Jesus’s actions as an earthly man, but doubtlessly presents him as the Son of God.
It is the work of a father, who happens to be an author, who expresses his own faith, derived
from the reading of the New Testament.
The Life of Our Lord opens with a very personal salutation, “My Dear Children” (TLOL,
1999: 17) and continues by informing his readers of the importance of the story they are about
to discover. This salutation and the following passage prove what a personal nature the
manuscript had; the voice of the narrator was the voice of a father speaking to his children.
The work was meant to be read aloud, maybe because Dickens imagined a group of uninitiated
listeners, without prior knowledge of the New Testament, who were being introduced to Jesus
Christ for the first time. It is important to underline this double perspective – both as an author
and a father, as we analyze the certain aspects of Jesus Christ’s life that he sees fit to draw his
children’s attention to.
The narrator proceeds with another personal phrase “I am very anxious that you should
know something about the History of Jesus Christ…for everybody ought to know about Him”
(TLOL, 1999: 17) and carries on providing grounds for the importance of the account:

‘No one ever lived who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or
were in any way ill or miserable, as He was. And as He is now in Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to
meet each other after we are dead, and there be happy always together, you never can think what a
good place Heaven is, without knowing who He was and what He did.’
(TLOL, 1999: 17)

51
 These opening reflections are some of the most important guidelines for understanding
Dickens’ literary and theological aims in creating the manuscript because they display both a
father that is deeply aware that a life of faith must start as soon as a child may be introduced to
these principles, and an author who believes that his narrative represents the proper way of
communicating them. For children incapable of reading the New Testament and unable to
understand the complexity and uncanny elements of such a belief system, this type of narrator,
who addresses his readers so kindly and affectionate, clearly considers it to be a paternal duty
to imprint upon his children the significance of following Christ at the earliest possible age.
Addressing this important work towards an uninitiated audience, Dickens also
understands the importance of delivering his message in the most condensed and
comprehensible way possible. The author undoubtedly displays his belief in narrative as the
most convincing and proper way to rebuild the base of his children’s faith, and sets out to do
so.
The fact that Dickens considered the need of starting a Christian education before his
children were able to read for themselves, and the associated information it offers about the
forming stage of his audience, indicates further support for reading The Life of Our Lord as an
indispensable version of the author’s Christian teachings. In addition, it supplies a noteworthy
understanding of the mind of the author who considers narrative to be the most efficient
manner for creating a proper and righteous faith.
This paragraph also provides readers the one of the first places in the manuscript where
the ‘father Dickens’, passes on his personal definition or interpretation (sometimes, even
commentaries) on the New Testament, and ‘the author Dickens’ sets up the poetic licence that
will represent the rest of the narrative. In the process of coordinate and chronologically put
together the different versions of the Gospels, Dickens does not hang back to insert his own
particular way of storytelling and he often incorporates the same language and style for which
he has become so famous. We must acknowledge the manner Dickens opts for focusing his
readers’ or listeners’ attention on several specific aspects of the life of Christ, without insisting
on a particular doctrine. Instead of suggesting a precise religious practice through his
interpretation, the author considers proper to picture the events of Jesus’ life almost solely as
they appear in the New Testament. Dickens chooses to do so in order to portray Christ as the
example for his children to imitate without regard to any religious group or doctrine.

52
5.3 Contextualization

As Colledge mentions, The Life of Our Lord belongs to a wide category of “juvenile
Gospel narrative” that comprises the little known genres of “Gospel harmonies” and “modern
Lives of Jesus” (Colledge, 2009: 23-24). Represented by a belief in the reasonable correctness
of the original Gospels and an emphasis on supplying harmonization, the Gospel harmony had
numerous different forms in the nineteenth century, but it surely was not a literary form when
Dickens began The Life of Our Lord.
The second and rather less widespread of these two genres was the ‘Lives of Jesus’
which, according to Colledge, had its beginning in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment
historical studies and generally recreated Jesus’ biography, challenging the historical validity of
the Gospels and also the traditional portrayal of Jesus that emerged from them (Colledge, 2009:
24). While The Life of Our Lord opens by describing itself as a “History,” Dickens does not try
to challenge the Gospels in a different way that other contemporary ‘Lives’ would have. We
could consider that The Life of Our Lord advocates for the Gospel harmony genre, but, in the
same time, attain distinction still from this larger body of work. Rather than disturb himself
with the doctrinal connotations of a specific exposition of the Gospels, Dickens’ clear
concern is for recreating the crucial elements of Jesus’ life in a way that his children could
comprehend and appreciate it and he is more interested in the story itself, rejecting the burden
of a preconceived conceptual framework that, in his mind, would bias a portrait of Jesus
derived from the Gospels alone (Colledge, 2009:22).
Dickens considers Jesus’ life as the centre of Christian teaching and it could easily be
the only directive by which to guide one’s life. This is the main important difference between
The Life of Our Lord and ‘Gospel harmonies’ or ‘Lives of Jesus’, and it can be considered more
of a Christ Narrative. Counting on his abilities to create a logical and unified story about the
Lord’s life, Dickens produces an exciting experience for his children, which makes easier to
understand even the deepest form of faith.

53
5.4 Rewriting the “New Testament”

To appreciate entirely the way this creed concretizes itself in both The Life of Our Lord
and in his fiction, we must point out the four specific areas of focus that Dickens mindfully
underlines referring to Christ. The author inserts in his story every miraculous occasion of
Christ healing the sick, nourish His Disciples, carrying for the poor and helpless, and proving
His power over death. During the story of His birth and the episodes that follow, Dickens
meticulously displays each New Testament example from His life that belongs to these four
categories of good deeds, and explains thoroughly to his children how important the example
this works provide is. While including this events, the ‘author Dickens’ does not forget his
readers understanding level and provides necessary comments, with a language mostly
informative.
After narrating the birth of Jesus, Dickens writes “it was very wonderful, but God
ordered it to be so” (TLOL, 1999: 21), because he considered that it was imperious to provide
a divine explanation for such remarkable events. Then he proceeds to tell the story of King
Herod and the “dreadful murder [which] was called the Murder of the Innocents” (TLOL,
1999: 22), till the moment when Jesus was baptized by John, a moment beautifully presented:
“the sky opened, and a beautiful bird like a dove came flying down, and the voice of God,
speaking up in Heaven, was heard to say ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased!’” (TLOL, 1999: 28). After establishing that all these amazing actions are only possible
through God’s will and because God “ordered it to be so,” Dickens considers that his readers
are ready to discover Jesus’s good work. Further on, Dickens writes: “Jesus Christ then went
into a wild and lonely country called the wilderness, and stayed there forty days and forty
nights, praying that He might be of use to men and women, and teach them to be better, so that
after their deaths, they might be happy in Heaven” (TLOL, 1999: 28-29). Perhaps more
importantly, Dickens goes on to inform his children that:
‘When He came out of the wilderness, He began to cure sick people by only laying His hand upon them;
for God had given Him power to heal the sick, and to give sight to the blind, and to do many wonderful
and solemn things of which I shall tell you more bye and bye, and which are called the Miracles of
Christ.’

(TLOL, 1999: 29)

54
 We must admit that this paragraph shows several important features about the
Dickensian Christianity. The author is very concerned with the proper way to pass on and
clearly transmit Christ’s desire to “be of use to men and women” and to make sure they are able
to enter Heaven. Dickens portrays all His selflessness and assiduous work, pointing out that this
is the right example to follow. Furthermore, it is important to consider the manner in which the
author underlines the particular method Jesus uses to accomplish these “wonderful and solemn
things”: “by only laying His hand upon” the people that he heals or comforts.
In his version of the New Testament, Dickens creates a God who is firstly a physical
being, therefore He is an accessible earthly example of kindness and compassion, but whom, in
the same time, has all the divine characteristics of a deity. And when the narrator talks about
‘miracles’, he feels the need to explain himself and the concept behind the word, so they (the
readers or listeners) truly understand the majesty and importance of such an event:

‘I wish you would remember that word [miracles], because I shall use it again, and I should like you to
know that it means something which is very wonderful and which could not be done without God’s
leave and assistance.’

(TLOL, 1999: 29)

After narrating Jesus miracles and placing them in the centre of his story, Dickens
continues by recounting every one of them and, alongside this wonders, the author also
includes all His parables.
The Life of Our Lord proves that Dickens Christian view was “Jesus-centric”, a personal
creed in which Jesus Christ was the example for all Christians to follow, the only viable
example of pure generosity, kindness, indulgence, patience and tolerance. Reviewing The Life
of Our Lord, the burden of the storytelling becomes obvious and this increases the value and
the importance of the writing.
For a better understanding of Dickens’ last published work, I considered necessary to
add Colledge conclusion which states that Dickens’ last work suggests six fundamental
elements that refer to the author’s personal system of beliefs and repeat themselves through the
entire story, having the greatest significance for future approaches to Dickensian fiction.
55
 First of them states that: “implicit in The Life of Our Lord is God, the heavenly Father,
who providentially looks to the affairs of the lives of men and women, who has established a
moral world of right and wrong” and who holds men and women accountable (Colledge, 2009:
16).
The second one refers to the importance for both man and women to do what is right
“not simply because doing so brings the reward of Heaven after death, but more importantly
because doing what is right is an end in itself” (Colledge, 2009: 16).
Moreover, the third element talks about those who do wrong and “must seek the
forgiveness of God and, whenever it is applicable, the forgiveness of the person wronged”,
because, if this forgiveness is not obtained or there is no remorse for the actions of the culpable
one, “judgment awaits those who obstinately refuse to seek [it]” (Colledge, 2009: 16). The
fourth element is the one that, in my opinion, emphasis itself mostly through Dickens’ story:
“in as much as men and women are accountable to God and His moral standard, they have
in Jesus the exemplar through whom they observe how to discharge their moral responsibility
and to do the right, imitating Jesus in his moral and relational example” (Colledge, 2009: 16),
while the fifth element relates directly to Dickens’ main character and states that “one of Jesus’
outstanding character traits in The Life of Our Lord is his concern for and attendance upon the
needs of his fellows” (Colledge, 2009: 16). Finally, Colledge argues that for Dickens, “God’s
world is a place of supernatural events and influence” where “healings are performed, evil
spirits are cast out, the dead are raised, and other miraculous events occur” (Colledge, 2009:
16).

56
5.5 Conclusions

In a world where most of the wars started from a religious reason, Dickens created a
religion that did not required sacrifices or loss, nor churches or temples to communicate with
the divinity. Despite the fact that The Life of Our Lord is written in a very simplistic manner
and is structured in a straightforward narrative form in order to offer his audience a basic
retelling of the events of Jesus’s life, the story itself has a powerful humanitarian message,
teaching people to take Jesus’ instance and just be as good as they can possibly be.

‘He is the exemplar of how human beings are to act toward one another. They should be humble,
unassuming, and ready to lend a hand; the true mark of duty and loyalty to God is the degree to which
human beings fulfil their duty toward their fellow creatures.’

(Colledge 2009: 16)

57
 CONCLUSIONS

Through this BA Project I tried to demonstrate the presence and influence of religion
in the Victorian literature.
Gaskell shows that in a world of personal and economic crisis, when left without
alternatives, one seeks comfort in religion. No one is without religion, not even Mr. Higgins:

‘There’s many a time when I’ve thought I didna believe in God, but I’ve never put it fair out
before me in words, as many men do [….] I have looked round at after, to see if He heard me,
if so be there was a He [...]. There’s but one thing steady and quite i’ all this reeling world, and
reason or no reason, I’ll cling to that’”

(N&S, 1995: 227)

In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hardy compared Victorian harsh religious and social norms
with his alternative religions of animated Nature, ‘Neo-Christianity’, and Neo-Hellenism
leaving the reader to conclude that the religion embodied by Tess, the Religion of Humanity, is
the only suitable and honest religion. His Positivist ‘priestess’ was able to lead her family and
her community to a positivist stage through her immense power of compassion and her self-
sacrifice. Bronte’s Jane Eyre is the story of a girl who, despite everything, succeeds to find
happiness. Bronte portrayed Jane as a very independent individual; hence she chooses to follow
her own personal religion. Jane Eyre is the Victorian feminine representation of free thinking,
as she considers better not to adhere to any religious doctrines.
Dickens’s manuscript presents a beautiful religious story, where the author, although
not present in his children’s lives, can still guide their steps into the amazing world of God. His
version of the ‘New Testament’ teaches love, respect and compassion, being the perfect gift for
a child who wants to discover and understand God. In conclusion, the aim of this paper was to
demonstrate how religion influenced Victorian writings. It is clear now that even though all the
four authors had their religious doubts, or they even lost their faith (Hardy), the subject of
religion never ceased to influence the Victorian novel. Further studies are recommended to
examine the evolution of religion’s influence after the Victorian era and the impact literature
had over the readers.
58
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