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The world of Villette is flushed with sounds which often blur the lines between what is real and what is imagined. The sounds that Lucy Snowe describes, are ones that she physically experiences through her senses in her ‘real’ world and the ones that she perceives and imagines through those experiences. It is through the effects of sound that the reader is able to perceive meanings and significance that Lucy attaches to occurrences that would otherwise be considered as common and mundane. For instance, the presence of thunder in the recurring theme of storms act as a portent of things to come.
True to Goodman’s concept of worldmaking, this creation of new meaning and significance, is a ‘world version’ that ‘starts from worlds already on hand; [in that] the making is a remaking’ (6). Towards this end, the repetition of certain symbols in Villette is what that gives structure to Snowe’s world system as well, as demonstrated by the ringing of St John Baptiste’s bells which is ‘relative to the organization’ (9) of time in Snowe’s ‘real’ world.
One key feature of gothic literature is the presence of isolation and despair; and this is reflected in the soundscapes of Villette, where the fervour of life can be heard through the city streets in contrast to the smothering shroud of hushed whispers and quiet footfalls that is Madame Beck’s boarding school. If we were to consider genre as a ‘frame of reference’ in which Bronte weaves her tale, the world that she has described and the manner in which her readers are thus inclined to receive it is a collaborative effort that creates a new world version.
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Works cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Villette. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1993.
Goodman, Nelson. Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett publishing company, 1988, United States of America
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Written by
Written by: Sonia Prado, Maud Koenders, Julia Lindkvist, Mabel Hall, Cathrine Flymén and Chantal Svensson
Worldmaking 4: 