The Governess by Sarah Fielding

First published: 1749

Type of work: Moral tale

Themes: Education, emotions, and friendship

Time of work: The early eighteenth century

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: Mrs. Teachum’s school for girls, northern England

Principal Characters:

• Mrs. Teachum, the governess at a small girls’ school, a genteel widow in her early forties who is tall, dignified, and commanding, yet kind and tender
• Miss Jenny Peace, the eldest girl at the school, fourteen years old, who is a model of sweetness and gentility, though she once suffered from excessive melancholy
• Miss Sukey Jennet, almost twelve years old, handsome and assured but suffering from vengefulness
• Miss Dolly Friendly, an eleven-year-old student, who is quiet and agreeable but tries too hard to be friends with everyone
• Miss Lucy Sly, a short, eleven-year-old student with rather sharp features who tends to be deceitful, blaming others for her own actions and faults
• Miss Patty Lockit, a tall, ten-year-old student who suffers from envy
• Miss Nanny Spruce, a small and slightly lame nine-year-old student who suffers from excessive vanity of her clothes
• Miss Betty Ford, a plain, nine-year-old student, with red hair and freckles, who suffers from excessive vanity of her beauty
• Miss Henny Fret, a genteel nine-year-old student who is fretful and peevish
• Miss Polly Suckling, the youngest of the students, an eight-year-old who is short and cherubic but who suffers from being too quarrelsome

The Story

A classic schoolgirl story, The Governess combines elements of morality tales with biographies and fairy stories, all of which evoke an imaginative world while emphasizing a strong moral message and tone. The story begins with a climactic scene in the school garden where eight of the girls start fighting over who should get the largest apple. Meanwhile, Jenny Peace, the oldest student and the one appointed to distribute the apples and otherwise supervise the girls, looks on, helpless. This confrontation leads Jenny to talk first with Sukey Jennet and then with the other girls about the importance of recognizing and conquering one’s own vices and follies. She thus leads all the girls to become better friends.

Jenny then reinforces this lesson by telling her life story and about how her mother taught her to overcome her own folly of excessive melancholy and led her to become a model of virtue and goodness. This first life story excites the girls’ imaginations, and for the next nine days they spend an hour every morning and afternoon sitting in an arbor in the garden sharing their life stories. As each girl tells her story, she explains how she came to acquire her particular vice, and then she shows how Miss Jenny’s lesson and example have taught her to overcome that vice and be a better-behaved and more virtuous young lady.

Interspersed among the nine life stories are two fairy tales, as well as a story, a letter, a play, and a fable, all of which are moral lessons illustrating the follies of vice and the benefits of virtue. The first fairy tale, which tells the story of how the dwarf, Mignon, defeats the cruel giant Barbarico, teaches that one can overcome any difficulty with patience. The second fairy tale tells the story of the Princess Hebe, who suffers because she is disobedient to her mother. Only when she recognizes and confesses her faults and returns to obedience can she again be happy. Miss Dolly then reads the story of Celia and Chloe, which teaches that deceit and treachery only bring unhappiness and that peace can be achieved only when one confesses and repents these faults. Miss Sukey reads a letter from her cousin which illustrates the vice of envy. Miss Jenny reads a play which teaches that peace of the mind will attend the virtuous, while confusion of the mind will attend the wicked. Finally, Miss Jenny reads a fable in which all the birds contest which bird has the strongest title to happiness. While the birds argue over this, showing their envy and malice, the title eventually goes to the dove, who leads a life of simple happiness. This fable teaches that one can be happy only when one avoids vice and folly and leads a simple and virtuous life. All these lessons not only teach the girls to interpret such material correctly but also show them the happiness that attends virtue and the unhappiness that attends vice.

These lessons are reinforced by a visit from two ladies who, though aristocratic, are quite vain because of their beauty and their appearance. The students also make two outings to a nearby Dairy House. On these outings, they show that they have taken their lessons to heart and are very courteous and well-behaved young ladies. They also visit the fine house of Lord X, which, though quite beautiful, does not offer its owners any happiness. This visit shows the girls that grandeur and happiness do not always go together.

By the end of the ninth day, the girls have learned these lessons and are much happier young ladies. The novel ends with the departure of Miss Jenny Peace, who must return to her relatives; however, the memory of Jenny, the lessons she taught, and the example she set remain.

Context

The Governess is Sarah Fielding’s best-known work and her only work written for children. It stands in its own right as the first novel for children written in English. Fielding started writing as an amusement for her niece, Henry Fielding’s daughter, and ended up publishing it because of the lack of decent reading material for children. This does not mean, however, that Fielding was completely revolutionary in this work, for in it are remnants of many of the literary genres common in the eighteenth century. For example, she has all of the students tell their life stories. The genre of the biography or autobiography was extremely popular in the writing of the age. Also, her central theme relies heavily on the morality plays and the morality pamphlets that were popular at the time. These would have been easily recognizable to the eighteenth century audience for whom she wrote. Additionally, Fielding was heavily influenced by the ideas of her brother, Henry Fielding, novelist Samuel Richardson, and philosopher John Locke.

One must not, however, dispute the originality or importance of this novel. Before Fielding, the only literature written for children were brief plays and tales. After Fielding, however, children’s literature grew into a genre of its own. As critic Jill E. Grey emphasizes, Fielding was the first author to portray realistic children and describe their lives in a realistic environment and one particular to children—school. In doing this, Fielding not only became the first novelist of children’s literature but also established what would become a subgenre of children’s literature, the school story.

It is in this role of establishing the genre of children’s literature and the subgenre of the school story that Sarah Fielding is most important. This novel was the beginning of more than two centuries of literature for children. The influence of The Governess can be seen in the many school stories which followed it, including The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (1765), Dorothy Kilner’s The Village School (c. 1795), Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess (1905).