Study On The Change Of Female Image From Radical To Moderate In Charlotte Bronte’s Novels

Charlotte Bronte was a realist literary writer born in19thcentury Britain. In her worksshe portrayed people and their lives in a realistic style. In her life, she wrote five novels suchas Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette and Emma; The novel Emma, however, she leftuncompleted. Many literary critics and researchers at home and abroad as well used to doresearch on a single novel in order to find out writer’s thoughts and worldview. It is a limitingpractice as it covers only one span of Bronte’s life. Thus the resulting claims could notrepresent the author’s thoughts in their entirety.During this research on her five novels, I found that there is a shift in female image froma radical woman to a moderate one, who in the end has realized the difference between idealand real situation. For instance, the heroine of Jane Eyre is very a radical woman but MrsChalfant is not that radical; she is much moderate. In order to describe and explain this shiftof change, I adopted feminism as a theoretical framework. As a writer lives in a time periodand environment which contribute to his or her views and thoughts, so I also includedBronte’s biography in this research.This dissertation is divided into eight parts. In the first part, which is introductory, I writeabout the research status of five novels since the day they were published at home as well asabroad, and also presented the central argument of this dissertation. Next is the first chapter,in which I tried to analyze the female image of Frances Henry in the novel Professor. In thesecond chapter analysis of the character of Jane Eyre has been presented where she is seen aspassionately radical who totally refused to accept any kind of male authority. The thirdchapter describes the images of two women such as Shirley Gilda and Caroline Hurlstone inthe novel Shirley. Unlike Jane Eyre, Caroline is shown very moderate and humble. Both ofthem have grasped the difference between ideal and reality. The fourth chapter deals withLucy Snow, the heroine of the novel Villette. She has been portrayed as a calm and humblepointing out the shift in Bronte’s thoughts and worldviews. The fifth chapter analyzes thecharacter of Emma. In this novel, the writer ties to portray the image of male and female in aharmonious relationship and thus reduces the conflict between them. The sixth chapter I triedto discuss the reasons of this change of from radical to moderate in female image. In theconclusion, I tried to reveal those difficult situations with which a women who struggles forher rights have to go through.