Hattersley versus Huntingdon
Juxtaposition is a technique whereby two contrasting things are placed side by side for effect. In this chapter, Bronte uses the description of Hattersley's 'reformation' (or, really, the way in which Helen RESCUES Hattersley) to emphasise just how beyond rescue is her own husband. As we see Hattersley wipe tears from his own face, and run to embrace his long-suffering wife, we realise that this is NEVER going to happen between Helen and Arthur. Helen must realise this too, hence her decision shortly afterwards to cut her losses and finally run away. A bit like the bible story where one of the thieves on the crosses next to Christ was SAVED and the other was DAMNED, so we have a similar situation here. (And Anne Bronte, religious as she was, would have known this story VERY well...) Hattersley, by the christ-like Helen, has, indeed, been SAVED; meanwhile, Arthur is, in the eyes of Helen (and, I think, Bronte herself) most definitely damned.
The Final Straw
By this point Helen has completely had enough. With the arrival of the new 'governess' (who seems to be far 'closer' to Helen's husband than to her child!), Helen decides that she simply has to leave. I don't know if any of you have seen a Julia Roberts film from 1991 called Sleeping With The Enemy, but this part of the novel reminds me massively of that film. In both of them, there is a wife so terrified and fed up of their marriage and their abusive, tyrannical husband that they will do anything to escape from it. In both of them, the wife secretly escapes and then assumes a new, fake identity and a totally new life somewhere far away from her evil spouse. In both of them, the marriage used to be OK - and, at the start, was positively tender - but then quickly decays and passes the point of no return. In the film, however, Julia Roberts' husband manages to track her down, and finally arrives at her new home to try to kill her: I wonder of Arthur will go that far himself too???...
If you want to find out more about the film I have been talking about, click below:
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