Looking at Cleopatra: The Expression and Exhibition of Desire in Villette

The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature

“…Like Jane, Lucy Snowe in Villette is also a determined viewer. Her trip to the museum and her scathing interpretations of both the "improper" Cleopatra painting and the "proper" La vie d'une femme series have been the subject of much commentary; critics generally read the scene as a concise articulation of Lucy's rebellion against social gender norms (Gilbert and Gubar 2000, 403;Kromm 1998, 387;Matus 1993;Millett 1970, 143). Lucy's dismissal of the male-produced images stems from their false mimetic claims, their inability to truthfully represent either woman's experience or her physical presence.…”

Dissolving Pearls: Charlotte Brontë's Textual Hieroglyphics

“…Lucy's words act to condemn not the painting itself but the ideology on which Lucy bases her judgments, judgments that reflect ''long-standing Western stereotypes of the Egyptian queen''. 23 She judges her as a woman* a fault Lucy will soon recognize when Graham Bretton condemns the actress Vashti: ''He judged her as a woman, not an artist: it was a branding judgment'' (260). In Lucy's critique of Cleopatra, Brontë uses words laced with irony, and we are meant to laugh at Lucy rather than to sympathize with her as she tries to domesticate this Egyptian queen by suggesting that Cleopatra cook, clean, and sew rather than rest on her royal couch.…”