英语论文：夏洛蒂_勃朗特的女权主义

Charlotte’s Feminist Declaration

- On Jane Eyre’s Female Consciousness

[ Abstract] The Victorian Age was men centered and men cont rolled times. Women were discriminated against by men at that time. However , the ahead of age female consciousness of Jane Eyre , the main character ofJ ane Ey re written by Charlotte Bronte ,challenged men’s authority. In this novel of the Victorian Age , Charlotte exposed and denounced men’s oppression of and discrimination against women. On the other hand , Charlotte is remarkable in port raying J ane Eyre as a self respecting and rebellious girl , desiring equality , bravely showing her love and deciding on her own

marriage. Through the port rayal , Charlotte set s a new rote model for women of Victorian times as well as modern age.

[ Key words] female consciousness ; self-respect ; equality When G. K. Chesterton said ,“The novel of the 19th century was female” he must have been referring to the emergence of a number of brilliant woman writer s whose works gave voice to the feelings and aspirations of the educated women of their

age.Charlotte Bronte is one of the greatest women writer s ,and her J ane Ey re is undoubtedly an out standing women’s declaration of independence and love. It is J ane Eyre’s female consciousness that awakens women and voices women’s aspiration for liberation. J ane

Eyre’s female consciousness is far beyond.Victorian times. In 19th century , women did not have any status. They were discriminated against and conceived of as people inferior to men. Although

women’s colleges were established at Cambridge in 1869 and at Oxford in 1879 , women could not take degrees at the

university until 1920-1921. At that time , almost the only occupation open to women of good families was teaching as school mist ress or more likely serving as governess in a private family. The Victorian moral code for women was that they should remain ignorant and uneducated. So , novels about young girls who went out alone into the world , suffered various t rials , miseries and temptation , and emerged chaste and t riumphant had been popular in England for over a century. Charlotte Bronte and her J ane Ey re challenged the old commandment and t raditional discrimination to women.That is why J ane Ey re was criticized by some people.Lionel Stevenson

said ,“J ane Eyre was an intolerable renegade from all the standards of behavior expected of respectable girls. ”W. A. Craik thought ,“The Bronte biography does them a disservice with the reader ,may prevent him f rom seeing properly are air individual merit s or

indeed what is her purpose in writing it . ”However , the praise of J ane Eyre by far outweighs criticism. Most people regarded this book as one of the greatest novels of that time. It was J ane’s

rebelliousness , her dislike of servility , her insistence on equality with her master and her claim that she had a right to feelings and passions that gave the book it’ s uniqueness and force , shocked many of it s early reader s and earned popularity among most

women. The book also encouraged women to be independent and

fight for their own right s. Luo Jingguo said ,“J ane Ey re is the first English novel even the most powerful and popular novel , which present s the modern view of women’s position in society. ”

J ane Eyre’s female consciousness , which runs through the whole story , can be viewed in two aspect s. One is the exposure and

denunciation of man’s oppression. The other is the port rayal of J ane Eyre’s outstanding character .Jane Eyre’s stories taking place in different stages of her life can be seen as connected by men’s oppression to her .

The first oppressor is J ane Eyre’s cousin , John Reed. John , at the age of 14 , has become particularly obnoxious , a fat , greedy , unwholesome bully. He regards himself as the future owner of the house. He beat s and insult s J ane at will . Goaded by John Reed’s bullying , she hit s back on two occasions , fighting like a mad cat until she is overpowered. Then , she is locked up alone in the red room. Terror as well as anger is always with her when she is in the red room where her own vivid imagination f rightens her into a

frantic fit . J ane experiences the fir st crisis in life and nearly dies. In the clash between J ane and her cousin ,the writer emphasizes Jane’s feelings of dread , loathing and despair as the weak when facing unreasonable , illmannered merciless even brutish threat . This description shows exactly small and weak female’s general

sentiment under male’s malt reatment . When we read the part f rom Chapter I to Chapter IV , we will sympathize with J ane’s miserable experience.

The second oppressor is Mr . Brocklehur st , the headmaster of Lowood orphanage. The fir st impression he gives J ane is “What a great nose ! And what a mouth !

Just like a brutal bloodsucking animal .Here , Brocklehur st is port rayed as a very severe and hard hearted person who not only keeps the children half starved but prevent s them f rom having

normalmental growth. He is meddling , loveless and hypocritical .

Brocklehur st thinks it is his duty to punish the eighty girls’bodies in order to save their immortal souls. He does not let them have enough rest . He forces them to cut their long hair and makes them wear the worst quality , the most ugly clothes. He attempts to kill these poor girls nature of pursuing beauty. He is hostile to women. He

calls these girls’bodies “vilebodies”and their natural curled hair “excrescence”. He st rangles these girls’vigor and vitality. These

girls almost become machines which can only work and read Bible. Brocklehur st’s devastation to these girls is far beyond people’s toleration. Brocklehur st makes the life condition much worse ,

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