Leiden University Student Repository

Vergouwen, Caroline (2019)

The Female Saviour: Marriage and Morality in Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

The potential of female love to transform and redeem immoral male behaviour is a theme that can be seen in three novels: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). This thesis will examine to what extent these novels perpetuate the romanticised ideal of women as the moral and spiritual saviours of men. Through their portrayal of abusive, oppressive or otherwise problematic relationships, the Brontës explore how much influence a woman truly holds over a man’s behaviour. In doing so they navigate different perspectives on whether this ideal makes women submissive or empowered. Rather than subverting the idea of female moral authority, I argue that Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall reshape the idea to include the possibility for female agency and independence instead of self-sacrifice, whereas Wuthering Heights rejects the concept of moral authority as gendered.

Brontë

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Morality

Gender

Angel

Author

Vergouwen, Caroline

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

BA English Language and Culture

Supervisors

Newton, M.S.

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en