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In the middle 19th century, the great talented British woman pioneer, that is, the famous novelist Charlotte Bronte who created her magnum opus Jane Eyre that is successful in portraying a Cinderella style girl’s struggle story, which stirs the whole literary world in that period. To some degree, the novel can be interpreted as a symbol of the independent spirit. In the novel Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre (1987) of the British novelist H. Sommerset Maugham pointed out that the heroine Jane Eyre embodied the awaking of woman consciousness which reflected the resistance to the patriarchal society. It seems that Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen’s success lied in continuing the popular American Cinderella style of love story on the face which is not true because both the two works use the up and down style in the development of their plots through the two heroines’ independent personality and love viewpoint. The classical love pattern tied with the immortal female image make the story attractive and pregnant, which shines in the literature history. Through the comparison of the two heroines’ love view, the thesis is expected to help the readers have a better understanding of the feminine attitude to love and marriage, and learn about the women’s status in a certain period and the improvement of women’s position and female consciousness with the development of society. What is the main idea is the importance of independent in love relationship.
II. Brief Introduction to the Two Authors and Their Works
The part is a brief introduction of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen’s background and their works--Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. Jane Eyre tells a story of an orphan girl named Jane Eyre who lost both of her parents shortly after her birth and was adopted by her uncle who died soon too. Pride and Prejudice is a story about Mrs. Bennet’s daughters who have very little fortune as their dowery.
2.1 Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre in Brief
Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), was born on April 21, 1816, in a poor country clergyman’s family at Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England. Her mother died in 1821 which created a lot of chaos. She was the eldest one of the three famous Bronte Sisters that together with her older sisters--Maria and Elizabeth and all of them were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School in 1842. However, conditions there were very bad even by the standards of the time and it was not long before Charlotte Bronte was brought home to be educated by his father after the two eldest sisters’ death in that school in the spring of 1825. She returned to the school again in 1835 as an assistant teacher for a little more than two years, and for the next three years she worked intermittently as teachers and governesses. In 1842 Charlotte went to school in Brussels where she stayed less than two years with Emily, which led to her eventual writing of Villette. In 1846 the three sisters published a book of Poems whose sales were very slow that only two copies were sold in that year, but the reviews were good and spurred on further literary endeavors. Charlotte then started novel writing and her first novel The Professor was rejected by the publisher. In August of 1846 Charlotte began writing Jane Eyre that was published in 1847 and turned out to be a great success, which brought her fame and placed her in the ranks of the foremost English realistic writers. Shirley and Villette were another her two novels published in 1849 and 1853.