University of Strathclyde

Department of
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CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Seminar Two: Sarah Fielding, The Governess (1749)

Reading: first two episodes of first chapter: 'An Account of a Fray' and 'A Dialogue between Miss Jenny Peace, and Miss Sukey Jennett' (pp.51-58 in Broadview edition).

Try to answer the following:

1. 'An Account of a Fray'.

1.1 What are the symbolic implications of this episode?

1.2 Is the episode also psychologically convincing?

1.3 In what ways does this episode expose a problem, or set of problems, that the novel must resolve?

1.4 What is Jenny Peace's role?

2. 'A Dialogue between Miss Jenny Peace, and Miss Sukey Jennett'.

2.1 Is Sukey's reformation psychologically convincing? How is it brought about?

2.2 Does this episode reveal anything further about Jenny's role in the academy and in the novel's project?

3. What assumptions about childhood and education are revealed in these episodes?

4. What role does the narrator (and the titles of the episodes) play in the text?

5. What are the text's assumptions about the eighteenth-century child reader?

6. In what ways might The Governess be considered a feminist text?

Note: 'Eris. The goddess of discord. Eris is little more than a personification of strife, except in the familiar tale of the golden apple. Because of her disagreeable nature she was the only one of the gods not to receive an invitation to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. She came anyway and was refused admittance. Furious, she threw a golden apple, inscribed "For the fairest," among the guests. Three goddesses claimed it [Hera/Juno, Aphrodite/Venus and Athena/Minerva] and Paris was asked to judge among them. The ultimate result was the Trojan War.' (Edward Tripp, Dictionary of Classical Mythology (1970; Collins, 1988), p.232.

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