摘 要

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Background information 1

1.2 Literature review 2

1.3 Purpose of the thesis 4

1.4 Organization of the thesis 5

2. Feminism in Jane Eyre 7

2.1 Consciousness of self-independence 7

2.2 Consciousness of self-esteem 8

2.3 Consciousness of personality equality 8

2.4 Consciousness of autonomy in love and marriage 9

3. Revolt in Jane Eyre 11

3.1 Fight for survival 11

3.2 Fight for identity and respect 11

3.3 Fight for independence and equality 12

4. Attributions of Arousals of Jane Eyre’s Feminist Consciousness 14

4.1 Jane Eyre’s resistant character 14

4.1.1 Jane Eyre’s truth, goodness and beauty 14

4.1.2 Jane Eyre’s independence, adamancy and rebellion 15

4.2 Influence from the social background 16

5. Conclusion 18

References 20

Acknowledgments 21

Abstract

Jane Eyre is the masterpiece of the famous 19th-century female writer, Charlotte Brontë. It is an autobiographical work of the author. The novel allows the heroine to expose her emotions and her own life demands from the first-person perspective. In the social background of the patriarchal supremacy, the emergence of this book was broken the original social framework. Moreover, because of the feminist reasons, the justifiability of the patriarchal gender system was be in challenged. Jane Eyre’s growth process also can be understood as the awakening of feminist consciousness. She revolts and resists women’s independent human rights with the unequal society, and constantly pursues women’s rights. The growth experience of Jane Eyre witnesses her feminist consciousness, and also reflects spirit of resistance, when she is faced with oppression and ridicules, she never gives up in defense her own rights.

This thesis starts with the growth experience of Jane Eyre, and then explores the awakening of her feminist consciousness in the patriarchal society, based on the social background at that time. It reveals how she struggles for independence, equality, and freedom. This thesis helps to inspire more women to understand feminism and learn how to protect their own interests when they are under an unequal conditions. At the same time, it also can provide many useful views for Chinese and foreign scholars to study the development of female consciousness.

Keywords: Jane Eyre; feminist consciousness; independence; equality; revolt

中文摘要

《简·爱》是英国十九世纪著名的女作家夏洛蒂·勃朗特的代表作，是一部带有作者自传性的作品。采用第一人称的叙述方式，让女主人公倾诉自己的情感以及自己的人生诉求。在当时男权至上的社会背景下，这本书的出现打破了原有的社会框架，并且还由于女性主义的出现让父权制的社会性别体制遭到质疑，同时还挑战了男性在社会中的地位。简爱的成长过程实际上可以看作是女性意识觉醒的过程，她为女性独立的人权和不平等的社会进行斗争和反抗，不断追求女性的权利。

从简·爱的成长经历来看，简·爱身上所体现的不仅仅是女性意识，还有在众多的压迫和嘲讽面前，为了维护自身的权利从不放弃反抗的斗争精神。同时以当时的社会背景为前提，去探讨在男权社会背景下女性意识的觉醒，以及长期处于男权统治下的女性们为争取平等独立自由的权利所做的斗争。这不仅可以激发更多女性对女性主义的认识，并且还能让她们学会如何在不平等的条件下维护自己的利益，同时也可以为中外学者对女性意识发展进程的研究提供有益的观点。

关键词：《简·爱》；女性意识；独立；平等；反抗

1. Introduction

1.1 Background information

Charlotte Brontë(1816-1855), Jane Eyre’s author, was born in Howe, Yorkshire, North England. Her father was a poor pastor of the local Anglican Church and her mother was a housewife. Charlotte Brontë was ranked third with two elder sisters, two younger sisters and one younger brother.

Charlotte Brontë’s life was unfortunate. When she was five years old, her mother died of cancer. His father’s income was very low, and his family’s life was both hard and bleak. But because of his father was graduated of Cambridge St. John’s College, he was very knowledgeable. And also glad to taught his children. It was influence the Charlotte and her two younger sisters began to literary creation, and made them have a strong interest in literature from an early age.

In 1836, she sent her short poems to the Poet Laureate Southey at that time, but she was got a big shock from the great poet. Southey said to her in a reply: “Literary creation is not a career for women.”

In 1838, she went to a wealthy family as a tutor, but she was suffered discrimination and humiliation. Later, in order to run a school, she went to Brussels to study French. After returning from Brussels, she started a school, but she was failed too. Later, she and her sisters discussed many poems, which began her literary creation life. And after her first novel, The Teacher, was rejected, she began her second novel, Jane Eyre, which took one year to completed and it was published in 1847. She used a young woman who was born in penury and struggled for one’s own life to express her accumulated emotions in her chest, it deeply impressed the readers at that time.

As we all know, the society that Charlotte Brontë lived was an era of patriarchal supremacy. Literary creation was basically occupied by men at the beginning, and the role and image of women were always in a weak position, while Charlotte Brontë. It is very worthy of recognition to be able to write such a controversial novel at this time to rebel against the so-called mainstream society in which patriarchy was supreme. As the main work of Charlotte Brontë’s spirit of resistance, Jane Eyre’s progressive significance can be said to be obvious, and it was also kicked off the feminist movement.

1.2 Literature review

Gayle(1993) was pointed out that in Women amp; Politics. It was the socioeconomic factors that undergirded black women’s political consciousness during the antebellum era were northern industrialization, social reform activity, and the emergence of black nationalism in African-American communities. As these factors converged, they stimulated black women’s economic activity which, in turn, served as a springboard to black women’s political consciousness and resistance. First as community activists and then as abolitionists in both the national and international spheres, black women organized and protested against slavery, racism, sexism, and its attendant ills.(Gayle, 1993:67-68)[1] This study explores the material realities that under-pinned black women’s political development as well as the transformative stages of their political consciousness and activity.

Lamonaca(2002) discussed the implications of Christianity for a feminist reading of Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. Past feminist readings of the novel, which have shown that Jane Eyre rejected the patriarchal religious value-system of St. John Smith. Interpretation of the novel for its religious themes and the theological and doctrinal controversies of Brontë’s era. Idea that the novel proclaims a message of radical spiritual autonomy for women.(Lamonaca, 2002:245-263)[2]

The nineteenth-century literature served as a theatrical space wherein culture and politics merged to constitute women’s subjectivity. Charlotte Brontë’s literary imagination of the heroine’s “mission” in Jane Eyre heralded Mary Carpenter’s reform of Indian women’s education and Josephine Butler’s campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts in India. This article explores the way in which the writings of both feminists betray imperial/anti-imperial and domestic/political aspects of their activities, as Brontë represents such complex issues through the deliberate articulation of the protagonist’s subject-position, seeking the configuration of the female political network which stemmed from Jane’s individual engagement with nineteenth-century gender politics.(Ishikawa, 2014:220-238)[3]

Born and raised in Argentina and still maintaining significant ties to the area, Barbara Sutton examines the complex, and often hidden, bodily worlds of diverse women in that country during a period of profound social upheaval. Based primarily on women's experiential narratives and set against the backdrop of a severe economic crisis and intensified social movement activism post-2001, Bodies in Crisis illuminates how multiple forms of injustice converge in and are contested through women’s bodies.