The Characterization of ‘Woman’ in Pamela by Samuel Richardson and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Abstract

The effects of feminist ideas and movements were seen in English literature differently in the eighteenth century, in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century. ‘Feminist sensibility’ and the perception of ‘woman’ in the society were different in these three centuries. Feminism as an idea was born in the eighteenth century; and, its waves took their final form in the twentieth century. Cultural feminism as a theory is one of these waves. Donovan suggests in his book Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions that cultural feminism begins in the nineteenth century and takes its final form in the twentieth century. Accordingly, this study proposes that there is a cultural change in the characterization of ‘woman’ in the selected novels from three different periods: Pamela by Samuel Richardson, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles due to the emergence and the rise of cultural feminism in the periods when they were written.

Keywords

• feminism
• cultural feminism
• Pamela
• Jane Eyre
• The French Lieutenant's Woman

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