Elinor Dashwood

In the mid-19th century, a woman’s role in society suddenly began to gain traction. While the first wave of feminism, or the woman’s suffragette movement, remained more than a century away, women made small strides in respect to their social stratus. One example of this dynamic accumulates within Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, which depicts the life of the titular character through a first-person narrative, showing the progression of a once abused orphan girl to independent woman,…

A Dream of China is a Singaporean short story written by Ovidia Yu. Ovidia Yu is an author of various award-winning plays and short stories. She has had more than thirty of her plays produced and is considered one of the most well-known writers in Singapore, according to HarperCollins Publishers. Apart from that, she is also known for using humor and unique characters throughout her writing to explore changing roles and identities throughout society, especially for women. She is considered one…

Tracy Chevalier’s novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring, has very little basis in Vermeer’s masterpiece other than the same painter. Chevalier’s own internalized misogyny is evident in her use of archetypal female characters throughout this book, as well as her other works. Her personal bias influences the book so deeply, she refutes all historical fact in favor of rewriting the novels of the eighteenth century. Her complete lack of understanding of historical or artistic context and fact make her…