A Comparative Study of Feminist View in Pride

and Prejudice and Jane Eyre

《傲慢与偏见》和《简爱》中女性主义观点的比较研究

Purpose and Significance of the Study

Jan Austin is one of the most famous female writers of the world. In the eyes of literary critics, she is a British writer who can be compared with Shakespeare in terms of immortality. She created a large number of characters and opened the climax of the realist novel in 1830s. She did not marry in the whole life, but the theme of love and marriage has become a common proposition of her six novels. Her works often taunt people's stupid, selfishness, snobbishness and pretentiousness by comedy scene.

Before Pride and Prejudice, there was a trend of women' love in English novels which were filled with sad and sentimental emotion in the late eighteenth Century. Pride and Prejudice overcame this tendency and was close to modern life. And the heroine Elizabeth's psychological process of self discovery from love to marriage is also the process of the awakening of female consciousness. It is of great significance in a society full of male chauvinism.

In the history of British literature, Jane Eyre is known as a classic masterpieces. And it has been 156 years of history. It successfully created the first heroine who has courage to struggle and to fight for freedom and equality. If Elizabeth is a representative of the awakening of women' consciousness, Jane Eyre is full of female consciousness.She has a strong sense of rebellion, she has self-esteem and self-confidence, and she believes everyone has the equality of soul. She is like a cup of water to purify every reader's heart. Under the temptation of a beautiful and rich life, she still has to adhere to her own personal dignity which is Jane's most charismatic quality.

Either Jane or Elizabeth has the primary female consciousness. We can take them for examples to make a comparison with the embodiment of female consciousness and to explore the reasons for their formation. This exploration can not only let us know more about the Capitalist development background in end of the eighteenth Century to nineteenth Century but also has important significance for the social shaping of female consciousness in modern life.