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)

closed access

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)...Show moreThe 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.Show less