THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN 19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF JANE EYRE BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË AND TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES BY THOMAS HARDY
Keywords:
Victorian literature; female representation; Jane Eyre; Tess of the d'Urbervilles; feminist literary criticism; gender ideology; patriarchy; fallen woman; moral autonomy; nineteenth-century novel.Abstract
This article examines the representation of women in nineteenth-century English literature through a comparative analysis of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891). Drawing on feminist literary criticism and socio-historical scholarship, the study investigates how both novels simultaneously challenge and reflect the prevailing Victorian ideologies of femininity, morality, and social class. The analysis demonstrates that while Jane Eyre constructs female subjectivity through the discourse of moral autonomy and spiritual equality, Tess of the d'Urbervilles deploys the figure of the fallen woman to interrogate the sexual double standard embedded in Victorian patriarchal culture. Both authors, despite divergent narrative strategies, mount a sustained critique of the structural constraints imposed upon women, thereby anticipating the feminist discourses of the twentieth century.
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