A Knowledge of Her Own: Unlocking the Forbidden Room in Villette.
Beehler, Brianna Antoinette.
2011
- Lucy Snowe, the narrator of Charlotte Brontë's final novel Villette (1853), suffers from two distinct nervous disorders: hysteria and paranoia. Past criticism has argued that hysteria is productive in Villette, but I argue that through hysteria Lucy has only limited access to knowledge, and that by transitioning into a paranoid state Lucy commences an active investigation. Consequently, Lucy's ... read moreprocess of accessing knowledge evolves over the course of the novel. While she is able to feel knowledge inside her from early on, she admits that she does not actually know it. This limitation results from the different functions of her two disorders � that is, that hysteria contains knowledge and that paranoia attains knowledge. Lucy's disorders do not work concurrently � where hysteria encounters its limits and leaves off, paranoia takes over. Lucy's paranoia becomes effective in that her sense of knowing induces her to pursue a confirmation of knowledge that is ultimately correct or revealing. In the process, Lucy unearths both knowledge and unknowledge.read less
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