The authors Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë lived in a very difficult era in Great Britain what concerns the position of women in the society. In this period, the fight for acknowledgement of a woman as a valid and equal member of the society just had started to pay dividends. Nevertheless, the change in stiff British society and mainly in thinking of people had come very slow.
The female authors as Austen, Brontë or Eliot had a difficult position in the literary world mainly ruled by men. Therefore, the women authors often chose to use a pen name in order to cover their identity or to prevent their work being judged on a basis of their sex. Nonetheless, their identity was often revealed and if their novels were innovative or radical, they …show more content…
The novels display a strong resemblance to Cinderella story. Both heroines are poor girls and unwanted relatives, treated amiss. They are able to marry a man of the higher social rank and thus elevate their own social position and secure a comfortable life. It does not seem to be an accident that their happiness is reached through marriage as the possibilities of women in the Regency and the Victorian periods were significantly limited and, essentially, marriage was the only possibility to ensure a life of quality and at least partial freedom. And actually, the personal freedom is the main objective of both heroines. In Mansfield Park, the desire for freedom is not as explicitly expressed but Fanny Price would like to freely choose a lifelong partner and release herself from the oppression of the Bertram family. In Jane Eyre Jane’s longing for liberty can be noticed quite easily. The heroine voices her yearning directly. She is hungry for life and she wants to explore the world. She wants to arrange her own independent life. She wants to marry her chosen man despite the social restrictions. Jane has many desires, which ultimately merge into one and that is a desire for liberty. However, this liberty is not easy to reach in the patriarchal society of the Regency and Victorian Eras. They are able to gain only partial liberty, but it is all they can obtain in the British society of early nineteenth
The female authors as Austen, Brontë or Eliot had a difficult position in the literary world mainly ruled by men. Therefore, the women authors often chose to use a pen name in order to cover their identity or to prevent their work being judged on a basis of their sex. Nonetheless, their identity was often revealed and if their novels were innovative or radical, they …show more content…
The novels display a strong resemblance to Cinderella story. Both heroines are poor girls and unwanted relatives, treated amiss. They are able to marry a man of the higher social rank and thus elevate their own social position and secure a comfortable life. It does not seem to be an accident that their happiness is reached through marriage as the possibilities of women in the Regency and the Victorian periods were significantly limited and, essentially, marriage was the only possibility to ensure a life of quality and at least partial freedom. And actually, the personal freedom is the main objective of both heroines. In Mansfield Park, the desire for freedom is not as explicitly expressed but Fanny Price would like to freely choose a lifelong partner and release herself from the oppression of the Bertram family. In Jane Eyre Jane’s longing for liberty can be noticed quite easily. The heroine voices her yearning directly. She is hungry for life and she wants to explore the world. She wants to arrange her own independent life. She wants to marry her chosen man despite the social restrictions. Jane has many desires, which ultimately merge into one and that is a desire for liberty. However, this liberty is not easy to reach in the patriarchal society of the Regency and Victorian Eras. They are able to gain only partial liberty, but it is all they can obtain in the British society of early nineteenth