'Leave this wilderness and go out hence': Women's Work and Colonial Domesticity inVillette

Abstract

Being motherless and feeling homeless, Lucy Snowe continues to move outwards as she develops her economy-driven mind as a working woman. Through a seemingly detached protagonist's travels across national boundaries, Charlotte Bronte unveils the material - in conjunction with the sentimental - foundations of the idea of British domesticity that hinges on exploitative economic practices at home and abroad. This article examines Lucy's development as a constant struggle with mother figures and the domesticity they represent in the novel. While Lucy questions and reconstructs the idea of home through her work, her international attempts at romance with Dr John and M. Paul demonstrate the colonial implications of femininity and domesticity.