Votary, Vixen and Vulgarian

Among the most amusing vignettes in Victorian novels are German governesses created by Charlotte Yonge, Charlotte Brontë and Mary Braddon. Fräulein Ohnglaube is a votary who believes in ghosts. Fräulein Müller is a vixen with a secret ambition, and Fräulein Braun is a vulgarian who scoffs two breakfasts of beef and beer. All are depicted as potential threats to the values and norms of the English ‘cult’ of domesticity.This paper argues that these authors wished to preserve and celebrate ‘pure‘ English domesticity . Their negative representations of German governesses reveal how thoroughly English and anti-cosmopolitan were their conceptualisations of domestic life

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