The Domestic Woman and the Employed Woman in Jane Eyre, North and South and Middlemarch

Šimić, Andrea. (2018). The Domestic Woman and the Employed Woman in Jane Eyre, North and South and Middlemarch. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of English Language and Literature. [mentor Knežević, Borislav].

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Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the following female characters in Jane Eyre, North and South and Middlemarch: Jane Eyre, Margaret Hale and Dorothea Brooke. The main objective of each and every analysis of the characters in question is to provide insight into the position of domestic and employed women in Victorian society. The paper shows how (un)successful these women are in leaving the private sphere and how much power they have in the public sphere. It has to be emphasized that money serves as a means to take political action if no other option is available to the individual in question. Furthermore, the paper pays due attention to the role of middle-class women. Victorian middle-class women used the knowledge they gained from visiting the homes of the poor and took that knowledge to the next level when they bridged the gap between the two sides of the divide – the upper-class and the working-class.

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