What happens at the end of Villette? don't read if you havn't read the book

Charlotte's view was definitely that M. Paul Emanuel died at sea at the end. She would have made it plainer, but her father wanted her to include a "happier ending" in the book, so she compromised for his sake.

Charlotte does seem to have a problem with happy endings, doesn't she? Some people have even written that the ending of Jane Eyre isn't strictly a happy one, since she becomes more of a caretaker for Edward and less his lover. Not sure I agree with that, but it is interesting. Do you think it goes back to their romanticism, wherein a tragic ending is somehow more compelling and unhappiness is more interesting than happiness? Or strictly about Charlotte's own tragic life and love? Well, either way, it seems plain that M. Paul never returns. People who can believe he does return and see a happy ending must be very young or very happy themselves.

I think that in Charlotte's terms Jane Eyre really -was- a happy ending. Rather than being Rochester's plaything (remember - he was going to dress her in "fine silks & jewels" after he proposed) she is now truly his equal -- she has an independent income, and it is he who depends on her. Charlotte's own love life was pretty tragic - that grand unrequited passion for M. Heger, the flirtation with her publisher, George Smith, which never went anywhere, & finally, a brief marriage to a curate who didn't re lly understand her need to write. Maybe the end of VILLETTE was about as happy as she could envision...

Meaning that being alone and independent, without family or spouse to annoy you, is a happy ending when you're tired of being the sole living child left to care for your aging father? I'll buy that, although it certainly makes Charlotte's life sound bleak. Actually, most biographies of the Brontes that I've read do make her latter days seem pretty nasty. Good insight, amy2.

Something like that. Even though I've read accounts that Charlotte was happy in her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, the fact was, she never wrote again after she married him. He didn't understand that she needed private time to think & that was that. Plus, childbirth killed her. But she was so miserable as the last lonely survivor that maybe this is what she wanted. We'll never know.

I think Charlotte was happy - very happy - in her marriage. She wrote to help herself through unhappiness; "The Professor" was a result of the M Heger infatuation, and "Shirley" was her way of dealing with the tragedy of her sisters' death. I would never suggest that the only reason she wrote was to work through emotional tumult, as it was clearly part and parcel of her very being. But I think she was ready to experience happiness for a time, and generate new ideas. I'll have to look this up, but I seem to recollect that she was working on a new novel at the time of her death. Any way, I'm sure she would have returned to literature eventually. Like most authors, writing was a compulsion. As to the ending of "Villette", the situation is somewhat similar to the ending of "Great Expectations". Dickens had wanted Estella to be married to a quiet country doctor, but I think it was his publisher that wanted Pip and Estella to get together. Rather than compromise his orignal artistic vision, he resorted to ambiguity. Charlotte did the same, but I don't believe she changed the idea behind the original concept.

Actually, Charlotte never wrote a word during her marriage besides letters (which Nicolls wanted Ellen to burn). Her last novel fragment, EMMA, was written prior. One evening, she ran upstairs & read part of the mss. to him, but he didn't really respond to it, & that was that. Through her marriage, Charlotte keeps mentioning that her time was not her own. I read an interesting account that in the last year of her life, Charlotte chose Life over Art -- consciously, & knowing what she was giving up. I w nder if she ever would have written again. I understand that EMMA shows signs of a growing power & maturity, so it's a terrible shame and a waste.

You're right about "Emma". I'm never as good on my Charlotte facts as I am on Emily. We'll never know, but I hope she'd have written more. I suspect that once the euphoria of marriage wore off, she would have found herself (in spite of what Southey said about rightful duties occupying a woman's time and leaving no time for writing) picking up her pen again. Whether or not she would have published again is another question.

I can't imagine that Nicholls would have forcibly restrained her from writing, though he didn't care a fig for her literary career - to him, she was pretty much the parson's daughter. I would hope that if Charlotte had lived, she would have finished EMMA. And knowing her, she probably would have published it too! One thing we can say for her: it was her ambition & discovery of Emily's genius which forced all 3 sisters into print. I wonder if they would ever have published without her drive.