The Secret Society: Descendants of Crypto-Jews in the San Antonio ...

Agnes sees herself as the kitten here, and by bemoaning the loss of the kitten’s innocence
and youth, admits her own anxieties about growth and departure. The use of the cat to
reveal Agnes’ psychological state evidences Anne’s animalization of Agnes, which
intensifies significantly once she reaches Wellwood.
At Wellwood, Anne viciously animalizes Agnes through the character of Tom
Bloomfield, who destroys Agnes’ ability to control herself and those around her. In her
article “‘Hapless Dependents’: Women and Animals in Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey,”
Maggie Berg comments on the connection between this episode and Agnes’ affection for
her former pony, remarking, “Upon taking up her new post, Agnes finds herself being
dragged around by her pupils like a pony, which, she thinks, was ‘reversing the order of
things.’” 8 Identifying Agnes with the pony leads the reader to the episode with the
rocking-horse, in which, after Mary Ann attempts to show Agnes her doll, Tom
intervenes and demands Agnes’ attention. As Agnes relates it,
Tom told her to hold her clamour, that Miss Grey might see his rocking-horse,
which, with a most important bustle, he dragged forth from its corner into the
middle of the room, loudly calling on me to attend to it. Then, ordering his sister
to hold the reins, he mounted, and made me stand for ten minutes, watching how
manfully he used his whip and spurs. Meantime, however, I admired Mary Ann's
pretty doll, and all its possessions; and then told Master Tom he was a capital
rider, but I hoped he would not use his whip and spurs so much when he rode a
real pony. 9
Agnes’ anxiety over his “manful” and copious use of the whip and spurs on the rocking
horse marks further verification of Anne’s animalization of Agnes’ psychology. To
Agnes’ criticism Tom responds, “'Oh, yes, I will!... . 'I'll cut into him like smoke! Eeh!
my word! but he shall sweat for it.',” 10 an example of the physicality of Tom’s own
viciousness that later leads to further debasement of Agnes.
Agnes’ animalization climaxes in an act of extreme violence prompted by an
ambience of disregard for the lives and welfare of animals. Upon visiting Tom’s garden
just after the rocking-horse incident, Agnes discovers bird traps made of sticks and corn.
The dialogue in which she inquires about their purpose proceeds:
I observed, on the grass about his garden, certain apparatus of sticks and corn, and
asked what they were.
“Traps for birds.”
“Why do you catch them?”
“Papa says they do harm.”
8 Maggie Berg, “‘Hapless Dependents’: Women and Animals in Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey,” Studies in the
Novel 34.2 (Summer 2002): 180.
9 Bronte Grey, 20.
10 Ibid.