The Representation of Women in Victorian Literature: A Reflection of Society and Changes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2021.v06.i11.020Keywords:
Victorian Literature, Gender Roles, Femininity, Feminism, Domesticity, Social NormsAbstract
The Victorian era (1837–1901) marked a significant period in English literature, reflecting societal norms, expectations, and evolving roles for women. Victorian literature offers a critical lens into the complex representation of women, revealing tensions between domestic ideals and emerging feminist consciousness. It was a time of immense social, economic, and cultural transformation in England, with the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and debates over women's roles influencing the social fabric. Victorian literature reflects these changes, capturing both the restrictive norms and the evolving roles for women.
This paper examines the depiction of women in Victorian literature, drawing on works by notable authors like Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy. It explores the intersection of literature and gender politics, analyzing how the portrayal of women served to both challenge and reinforce social expectations. The study employs critical perspectives from feminist and literary theorists to illuminate the complexities of gender representation in the Victorian era.
References
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Dickens, Charles. (1853). Bleak House. Bradbury and Evans.
Eliot, George. (1871). Middlemarch. William Blackwood and Sons.
Gilbert, Sandra, & Gubar, Susan. (1979). The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Yale University Press.
Hardy, Thomas. (1891). Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co.
Leckie, Barbara. (1999). Culture and Adultery: The Novel, the Newspaper, and the Law, 1857-1914. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Millett, Kate. (1969). Sexual Politics. Doubleday.
Schor, Hilary M. (1992). Scheherazade in the Marketplace: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Novel. Oxford University Press.
Showalter, Elaine. (1977). A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing. Princeton University Press.
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This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
