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The death of Prince Albert in 1861 was
a shock to England, especially since the Prince Consort was only forty-two years old. As
Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith note in their discussion of memorials to Albert, the sad
event was followed by a period of mourning during which “the nation threw itself
unhesitatingly into the gestures of grief” (1). Those gestures of grief included a
“profusion of monuments” in honor of Queen Victoria’s late husband. One of
the most notable of those monuments was the sculpture of Albert that the Queen
commissioned for his cenotaph in the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Interestingly, the sculpture includes the figure of a dog, recumbent at Albert’s
feet. This dog represents Albert’s favorite hound, Eos, who died in 1844. The
sculptor’s decision to include Eos in a statue that was created nearly twenty years
after the dog’s death is strong evidence of Albert’s attachment to the animal
and of the public’s knowledge of this devotion. Eos was female, and her fidelity to
Albert often was used symbolically in paintings and sculptures to represent Queen
Victoria’s fidelity to her husband. Not surprisingly, dogs appear as images of
fidelity in three novels—Wuthering Heights,
Agnes Grey, and Jane Eyre—which the Brontė sisters published
in 1847, only three years after Eos’s death. The three sisters admired Victoria and
the fidelity that Eos symbolized. However, the dog images in these three novels are not
mere novelistic restatements of Eos’s role in depictions of Victoria and Albert. The
Brontės’ novels are about common women in a patriarchal society in which the authors
themselves published their works under male pseudonyms. Consequently, these women are
depicted, unlike Victoria, as having little power. Since the symbolism of the dogs in
these three novels cannot parallel that of Eos, the Brontės use them as symbols of
masculine power. The women in these three novels attempt to gain symbolic power through
the existing patriarchy either by subjecting male dogs to feminine control or by
supplanting male dogs as symbols of masculine control. To understand how the Brontė sisters
modified the existing dog symbolism associated with the royal family, one must be aware of
the nineteenth-century anxiety that surrounded Victoria’s role as both Queen and
wife. The pervading view of women in general during the Victorian Age made the
Queen’s dual role problematic. As the monarch, she would wield great power, but no
one could forget that she also was a woman, and, later, a wife. According to John Ruskin,
an important critic and social reformer of the time, woman’s “true place and
power” was in the home—a place to which the Queen of the British Empire could
not be expected to confine herself (87). Ruskin’s 1864 lecture “Of Queen’s
Gardens” makes it clear that a married woman should maintain “true wifely
subjection” to the man who “guard[ed]” her from the perils and trials of
everyday life (86-7). The consequence of this philosophy was that women, according to
Richard Altick, became “second-class citizens” no matter what their social rank
(57). However, when Victoria ascended the throne, she assumed one of the most powerful
roles in England—that of Queen—and her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840 further
complicated her role because she became a wife. In Royal
Representations, Margaret Homans discusses Victoria’s unique position at length,
commenting that her marriage “both enabled and complicated her impersonation of the
woman her nation needed her to be” (4). Artists of the time had difficulty deciding
how to represent Victoria and Albert in their paintings and sculptures to acknowledge this
dual role of powerful Queen and submissive wife. For many such artists, inclusion of the
royal family’s dogs in their works proved quite helpful in resolving the dilemma. In
1845, for example, Edwin Landseer completed a painting called Windsor Castle in Modern Times and managed to
capture Victoria’s duality through Albert’s dog. In a discussion of this
painting, Susan Casteras emphasizes the “simple domesticity” of the scene (22).
Margaret Homans concurs but suggests further that the dog between Albert’s legs
represents “phallic dominance” and that Albert’s sitting in Victoria’s
presence places him in a husband’s role since ordinarily “none may sit in the
Queen’s presence” (28-9). However, the dog Albert caresses presumably is his
favorite dog, Eos, who died while the painting was being completed. Eos was female, so her
role as a symbol of masculinity is problematic. More logically, one can consider this
female dog to be a symbol of Victoria herself or, more specifically, of Victoria’s fidelity to Albert. Thus, Landseer manages to
capture Victoria’s dual role as Queen and wife by painting her standing, towering
above Albert, and by painting Albert sitting with the faithful Eos at his feet. The
paradox of representing a wife who is Queen resolves itself through the symbolic fidelity
of the dog. Undoubtedly, the anxiety of
Victoria’s dual role and the fidelity of Eos for her master became topics of
conversation at the Brontė house in Haworth. As Winifred Gérin comments in her biography
of Emily, “No item of national news . . . ever escaped the curious attention of the
Brontė children” (22). Certainly, both Victoria’s role as Queen/wife and Eos
were parts of the news, and in any case, the Brontė sisters took a special interest in
Victoria and her court. Gérin notes that the Queen was the “first ‘symbol’
of feminine power” Emily encountered (21). Furthermore, Emily and Anne incorporated
Victoria in their imaginary kingdom of Gondal. Given this interest in Victoria and her
household, the sisters certainly were aware of Prince Albert’s favorite dog Eos.
After all, the Brontės were devoted animal lovers, and Gérin notes that they had a
variety of pets at different times, including dogs, cats, ponies, donkeys, birds (wild and
tame), and even some of “the hidden denizens of the moors” (Charlotte 86).
Additionally, all three sisters—and Emily in particular—were quite fond of their
dog, Keeper, who actually was allowed to enter the house on occasion. Emily’s loving
watercolor painting of Keeper taking a nap, reproduced in Alexander and Sellars’s The Art of the Brontės, attests to the high regard
in which she held the animal (380). In fact, Keeper became so much a part of the household
that when Emily died, he attended her funeral, actually sitting in the pew with the rest
of the family (Gérin, Anne 297). Considering
this devotion to animals and the Brontės’ awareness of national news, the sisters
undoubtedly had at least some knowledge of Eos and of her role as a symbol of fidelity in
depictions that acknowledged the Queen’s dual nature. The Brontės, however, did not use the
dog image in the same way in Wuthering Heights,
Agnes Grey, and Jane Eyre that their contemporaries had done in
nonliterary artistic representations of Victoria and Albert. Eos was female, but the most
important dogs in these three novels are male, echoing the gender of the Brontės’
own dog, Keeper. The dogs in these novels represent the “phallic dominance” that
Margaret Homans sees in the Landseer painting. These dogs mirror Eos’s fidelity, but
the Brontės permutate that fidelity into the loyalty of a male dog for a male master.
Therefore, the Brontės’ dog images are symbols of masculine power. In essence, each
dog acts as an attendant spirit, or familiar, to his male master. Although the word,
familiar, is associated with witches, the term is appropriate in this case since a
witch’s familiar would act as an extension of that person’s supernatural power
in the same way that the dogs act as extensions of their masters’ masculine power.
Furthermore, the negative connotations of the word, familiar, are appropriate since the
male power that these dogs symbolize is
repressive—and, therefore, negative—toward the women in the novels. Of course,
the Brontė sisters undoubtedly would object to the association of their novels with
witchcraft of any kind, but the model of the familiar is useful in understanding the
permutation of the dog image. After all, these dogs are quite different from their
nonfictional predecessor, Eos. In Emily Brontė’s Wuthering Heights, this symbolic use of dogs as
familiars of masculine power appears quite early in the novel, although none of the female
characters is able either to supplant or to control any of
the dogs. At the beginning of the text, Mr. Lockwood describes his first visit to
Wuthering Heights, the dwelling of his landlord Mr. Heathcliff. Among his first
impressions of the house and its inhabitants, he notices that a number of dogs haunt the
various recesses of the room, and he actually uses the verb “haunted” to
describe their presence (3). Brontė’s apt use of this image of haunting to describe
the dogs is appropriate particularly since these dogs are acting as familiars to a male
character. They are extensions of their master, acting as symbolic representations of his
power. When Lockwood finds himself alone with them, he notices their “jealous
guardianship over all [his] movements” (5). In this case, they extend
Heathcliff’s ability to keep his guest under surveillance, allowing the man himself
to be absent from the room. This strong connection between the master and his dogs is
further strengthened by Heathcliff’s being described as a dog. Later in the text, for
example, Lockwood has an altercation with Heathcliff and says that the man “gnashed
at [him], and foamed like a mad dog” (160). The males in this novel cultivate their
relationships with their dogs to solidify that symbolic extension of their power.
Heathcliff, for example, tells Lockwood that his dogs “do right to be vigilant,”
and in a later chapter, Hareton appears with a group of “canine followers” that
attacks Catherine’s two dogs (6; 197). While these dogs are as faithful to their
masters as Eos is to hers, these particular dogs do not at all represent the same kind of
fidelity. This shift in the symbolism of the
dogs is apparent particularly in several scenes in which women are involved in some sort
of power struggle. For example, when the younger Catherine decides to sneak out of the
house near the end of the novel, she is fearful that the dogs will “raise an
alarm” (285). This instance of Emily Brontė’s use of dogs is of utmost
importance since the person potentially subjected to their surveillance in this case is
female. As symbols of masculine power, the dogs again extend male influence over the
female. Catherine asserts her own will for power by sneaking away, but she must avoid
alerting the canine familiars of the patriarchy. If the dogs become aware of the
female’s flight, they will inform their master through their barking, thereby
ensuring that Catherine’s bid for power will be resisted. In terms of this resistance to a
female’s attaining power, however, the most interesting dog image in this novel is
that of Skulker. At one point, Nelly tells Lockwood about an incident in which young
Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw are caught spying on the Lintons at Thrushcross Grange.
When they are discovered, they flee, but the Lintons release their bulldog Skulker, to
whom Heathcliff refers throughout his narration of the incident with masculine pronouns.
The dog seizes Catherine’s ankle and refuses to release her. As his master’s
familiar, this dog extends male power through more than surveillance by becoming a
physical agent for the master as he chases and captures the child. Heathcliff utters
“curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom” and tries to make the dog
release Catherine by thrusting a stone between its jaws (47). However, the dog has to be
removed forcibly by one of the servants, who takes the two children into the house. The
dog’s refusal to release the girl is evidence of his fidelity to his male master.
Since the master is not present physically, the dog protects the patriarch’s domain
(his house) to such an extent that he ignores Mr. Linton’s servant. Skulker’s
fidelity is quite strong. As the servant and children approach the Grange, Mr. Linton
calls, “What prey, Robert?”, and the servant responds, “Skulker has caught
a little girl, sir.” Thus, the female Catherine has become “prey” to the
dog, a symbol of masculine power. After Skulker’s attack, the Lintons evince more
concern for the dog than they do for the bleeding Catherine. One of Mr. Linton’s
first commands is, “Give Skulker some water, Jenny” (48). No one notices
Catherine’s bleeding ankle until she calls attention to herself by laughing at the
family’s examination of Heathcliff, whom they suspect is a thief. Again, the dog is a
symbol of repressive masculine power as evidenced by the family’s solicitude for its
well-being. Skulker is an extension of Mr. Linton’s masculine influence, and in the
confrontation between Skulker and Catherine, the symbol of masculinity prevails. At the
end of this encounter with Skulker, Catherine ends up pinching the dog’s nose as he
eats (49). Unable to become a part of the masculine power structure either by controlling
the dog or by supplanting him, she becomes an annoyance to the animal that symbolizes that
power structure. Similar to Prince Albert’s Eos only in the degree of his fidelity,
Skulker’s depiction is a masterful permutation of dog imagery on the part of Emily
Brontė. A
similar power struggle occurs in Anne Brontė’s Agnes
Grey, a short novel in which the title character tries to gain control over another
male dog that symbolizes masculine power. However, like the female characters in Wuthering Heights, Agnes fails in her attempt to
gain that power. The canine symbol of this power is the small dog named Snap. When Agnes
obtains the “little rough terrier,” she refers to the animal as “him,”
linking him with masculinity because of his gender (112). Although the dog’s presence
in the text is quite limited, one should not overlook his symbolic role in the plot. His
presence in the novel is divided into two stages. In the first stage, he becomes
Agnes’s dog, and Agnes attempts to control him, as a symbol of male power, by
becoming a matriarchal figure who protects him and obtains his fidelity in return. Snap’s previous female master treated him badly,
subjecting him to “many a harsh word and many a spiteful kick and pinch” (112). Agnes
tries to rescue Snap from this mistreatment by claiming him as her own. However, her
efforts are futile because after she claims Snap, the other characters in the novel still
mistreat the dog. Specifically, her attempt to control a symbol of masculinity is thwarted
by a human male. When Snap interrupts a tźte-ą-tźte between Miss Murray and Mr.
Hatfield, he receives a “resounding thwack” on the skull from Hatfield’s
cane (114). The man’s beating the dog is a symbolic punishment of Snap for having
betrayed the patriarchy to become a woman’s dog. Furthermore, by its exposing
Agnes’s inability to protect Snap from such pain, the punishment also obstructs
Agnes’s attempt to gain power. When the dog runs “yelping back” to Agnes,
his “clamorous outcry” gives the man “great amusement” because on some
level—conscious or otherwise—Hatfield realizes exactly what he is doing
(114-15). He is suppressing Agnes’s bid for control of a symbol of masculine power.
Agnes makes a feeble attempt to rescue the animal from Hatfield, but she can do little.
Her only recourse is to stoop to “caress the dog, with ostentatious pity to shew
[her] disapproval” of the man’s severity (115). Despite Agnes’s efforts,
she cannot become Snap’s protector. As a male dog, Snap is a symbol of the
patriarchy—of male power. Since Agnes is a female in a patriarchal society, she
cannot fill the role of the protector of a symbol of masculinity. Her attempt to do so is
transgressive, and the consequence is punishment for the innocent dog. Eventually, Snap is
“taken away” and given to the ratcatcher, who is known for his “brutal
treatment of his canine slaves” (148). The masculine power structure simply cannot
tolerate Agnes’s influence over the dog. The first stage of Snap’s presence in
the novel thus ends with a reassertion of male dominance in the enslavement of the dog to
the ratcatcher instead of the dog’s remaining under the protection of a woman. The second stage of Snap’s
presence in Agnes Grey simply reaffirms that
male dominance. Although Agnes truly cannot become Snap’s protector, Mr. Weston
attains that goal by the end of the novel. In the penultimate chapter, Agnes sees a
“gentleman with a little dark speck of a dog running before him” on the beach
(188). She does not realize that these two are Weston and Snap until the dog approaches
her, “frisking and wriggling” at her feet (189). They are overjoyed to see each
other, for the dog remembers Agnes as well as Weston does. Interestingly, at the end of
this seaside encounter, Snap acts “a little doubtful” about whether he should
follow Agnes or Weston (192). However, when Weston calls him, he follows his “new
master.” The curate comments to Agnes, “I won’t offer to restore him to
you, Miss Grey . . . because I like him” (192). Weston has co-opted this creature as
his own familiar, extending his influence through the animal in an imperialist manner. He
does not wish to restore the dog because he cannot willingly relinquish a symbol of
masculinity to a woman. His decision maintains the existing patriarchal power structure,
and the strong identification between the man and the animal are visible again in the
final chapter, in which Agnes tells her mother, “I met an old friend on the sands
to-day, mama” (193). Agnes conflates Weston and Snap into a single
entity—”an old friend”—and does not separate the two until her mother
asks whom she met. Snap is a clear symbol of the patriarchy and returns to patriarchal
control. Ironically, Agnes is happy to see Snap with Weston, and she does not demand his
return because she realizes that her attempts to control this symbol of masculinity will
result simply in more punishment for the dog, damaging him permanently. After an abortive
attempt to attain control over Snap, a symbol of masculine power, Agnes chooses to remain
powerless so that the patriarchy will not destroy the symbolic dog. Weston recovers
control, and the patriarchy remains intact. Once again, the symbolism of Albert’s Eos
is transformed, and in this case, Anne Brontė tests Snap’s fidelity, finds it
inadequate, and then restores that fidelity to the patriarchy much in the same way that
Agnes places herself under masculine control through marriage at the end of the novel. Finally, Charlotte Brontė’s Jane Eyre incorporates the same modified dog
symbolism, but this novel is the most transgressive of the three. It includes the
recurring presence of Pilot, a dog who acts as Mr. Rochester’s familiar and whose
role is co-opted by Jane Eyre at the end of the novel. In all three of these Brontė
novels, Jane is the only female character who is successful in her attempt to attain
masculine power. In Jane Eyre, Rochester is
identified with Pilot in the same way that Heathcliff and Weston are conflated with their
dogs. For example, Brontė associates Rochester with Pilot one evening when Adčle gives
Rochester a good-night kiss. Jane notices that Rochester endures the kiss but does not
“relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so much” (133). Later, in a
discussion with Jane about Adčle’s parentage, Rochester says, “Pilot is more
like me than she,” associating himself with the dog even further (151). The nature of
the discussion—Adčle’s parentage—makes Rochester’s comment
significant because it implies that Pilot is related to him much as a son would be.
Pilot’s symbolism as an extension of Rochester’s male power is quite clear. This connection between man and dog is
visible starting with Rochester’s first appearance in the text. Jane meets him when
his horse slips on a patch of ice not far from Thornfield Hall. Before she sees the man,
however, she sees his dog. The first appearance of the black and white Pilot scares Jane
because he reminds her of an English spirit called a Gytrash, which she remembers can take
the form of a horse, mule, or large dog (117). Pilot’s ghostly appearance parallels
that of his canine counterparts who haunt the recesses of Wuthering Heights and suggests
that he acts as a familiar to Rochester. After Rochester’s accident, Pilot comes
“bounding back” with a fidelity like that of Prince Albert’s Eos, and he
goes to Jane (even though she is female) because she is the only help “at hand to
summon” (118). Interestingly, after the encounter, Pilot follows Rochester instead of
preceding him, as if the dog’s relationship with his master has been disrupted by
Jane’s presence. In fact, Pilot’s place has been
disrupted because Jane begins to take his place as a symbol of male power. Several times,
Rochester sends Pilot to play with Adčle while he talks with Jane. As Jane comments at
one point, Adčle “was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot” (127). At this stage
in the novel, Pilot retains his status as a symbol of masculine power. He is an extension
of Rochester’s ability to keep Adčle under surveillance. However, when Rochester
sends Adčle away with Pilot, he is essentially also placing the dog in the position of
governess while Jane takes the dog’s place as the patriarchal male’s companion.
Rochester laments, for example, that Pilot cannot talk as he explains to Jane why he
wishes to converse with her one evening (139). However, Jane has not yet taken the
dog’s place, for Pilot otherwise remains with Rochester all the time and even
sleeps—much like the Brontės’ dog Keeper—outside his bedroom door when the
kitchen door is left open so that he can gain access to the house (154). As the novel
progresses, Pilot’s status as a symbol of masculine power wanes. For example, when
Mr. Mason is wounded by Bertha in the attic, Rochester calls Jane to nurse him. An attic,
as the uppermost part of a house, can be a symbol of thought and intellect, so
Pilot’s absence and Jane’s presence in this scene with Rochester are
significant. Rochester begins to accept Jane as a replacement for Pilot because he starts
to view her as an intellectual equal (they share the attic space), unlike Pilot. Jane
later hears Pilot barking “far below, out of his distant kennel in the
courtyard” (222). His distance from Rochester indicates his waning influence as a
symbol of masculinity. By the end of the novel, Pilot has
lost even more of his status. When Jane visits Rochester in the penultimate chapter, she
finds Pilot lying “on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of
being inadvertently trodden on” (456). Although he is still Rochester’s
companion, he now stays out of the man’s way, and his status as a symbol of
masculinity has declined. Jane’s status, on the other hand, has increased. Pilot
realizes the change, and instead of staying with his master, he follows Jane around the
room. When Jane and Rochester go for a walk the next day, Pilot eventually abandons them.
Jane notes surprisingly that the dog has “actually gone home to his dinner” and
left the two people alone (470). At this point in the text, Jane effectively has
supplanted Pilot as a symbol of masculine power. Moments later, Rochester gives Jane his
watch, further transferring symbolic masculinity to her. She even becomes his
“vision” and his “right hand” since he is now blind (475). She has
succeeded in replacing Pilot as Rochester’s familiar, so this novel is the most
transgressive of the three under discussion. The image of the faithful female Eos appears
in a modified form as Pilot, who is faithful to his male master, but Pilot himself, as a
symbol of masculinity, is replaced by Jane. Clearly, the male dog images in Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and Jane Eyre are symbolic of repressive masculine
power which the female characters resist. These dogs, among whom are Skulker, Snap, and
Pilot, act as attendant spirits, or familiars, to their male masters. In effect, each dog
becomes an extension of his master’s male power in terms of surveillance and even
physical presence. The female characters in these novels attempt, with varying degrees of
success, to control or to replace part of that power.
Catherine Earnshaw fails completely in Wuthering
Heights, and Agnes Grey ultimately does not succeed either. Jane Eyre, however,
manages to attain her goal, actually supplanting Pilot as Mr. Rochester’s
familiar—his symbol of male power. Thus, the Brontė sisters explore the issues of
power and gender in their society by transforming the female fidelity of Prince
Albert’s Eos, inflecting that symbolism toward a representation of male power which
unconventionally minded women wish to possess or to supplant. Works Cited Alexander, Christine and Jane Sellars.
The Art of the Brontės. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Altick, Richard D. Victorian People and Ideas. New York: Norton, 1973. Brontė, Anne. Agnes Grey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Brontė, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Brontė, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1976. Casteras, Susan P. Images of Victorian Womanhood in English Art.
Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Darby, Elisabeth and Nicola Smith. The Cult of the Prince Consort. New Haven: Yale Gérin, Winifred. Anne Brontė. London: Nelson, 1959. ---. Charlotte Brontė: The Evolution of Genius. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1967. ---. Emily Brontė: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1971. Homans, Margaret. Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British
Culture, 1837-1876. Ruskin,
John. “Lilies: Of Queen’s Gardens.” Sesame and Lilies; Unto This Last; The Queen of Works Consulted James, Robert Rhodes. Prince Albert: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1984. Marshall, Dorothy. The Life and Times of Victoria. New York:
Praeger, 1974. Weintraub, Stanley. Victoria: An Intimate Biography. New York: Truman
Talley, 1987. Woodham-Smith, Cecil. Queen Victoria: From Her Birth to the Death of the
Prince Consort.
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