The rites of women : conceptions of the female role in Victorian England and their representations in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and south, and George Eliot's Middlemarch

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the multifaceted lives of women in Victorian England, and their respective portrayal in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, and George Eliot's Middlemarch. The introductory chapter provides a vital overview of the general treatment of women in Victorian society, and looks at important opinions as well as critical texts that led to the emergence of women as domestic angels. Vital issues including female sexuality, education, and the subjection and emancipation of women, are considered here. The first chapter highlights the relation between women and the marriage issue, and the expectations such an institution imposed on them. The complex female characters in the novels provide examples of maturing young girls as they progress into adulthood. The emotional and psychological state of these women comes out in their various relationships with family members, friends, and lovers. The question of female employment, and the physical as well as mental suffering it usually entailed, is explored in the second chapter. The three novels offer a range of women workers corning from diverse strata of society, and the dissertation focuses primarily on the position of governess, old-maid, and factory-girl. The third and final chapter examines the emergence of the three novelists as acclaimed writers, and considers why Bronte and Eliot chose to write under a male pseudonym. The second part of this chapter looks at the three central heroines, and how they all represent an evolution in the conception as well as the role of women within the novel.