Jane Eyre And The Mill On The Floss

Charlotte Bront? and George Eliot are two eminent female representatives of Victorian writers. Bront?'s Jane Eyre has been widely appreciated by readers all over the world throughout the years, and its heroine Jane Eyre lives in readers'minds as an image of rebellion and independence in English literature. George Eliot, regarded as"the greatest of Victorian novelists"leaves us many valuable novels. The Mill on the Floss is one of her early novels, and in the novel Eliot probes into the inner world of an innocent and kindhearted girl, different from any other traditional Victorian heroine either before or after her.Both Jane Eyre and The Mill on the Floss are seen as the two authors'autobiographical classic novels on feminine issues, and both Bront? and Eliot provide a copious and powerful description of growing up as a female in the Victorian Age. Making a comparison between Jane Eyre and Maggie Tulliver, this thesis focuses on three aspects:(1) different social roles of women;(2) different techniques in heroine characterization;(3) different influences and hence different successors.Bront?'s Jane Eyre is a heroine of fulfillment whereas Eliot's Maggie Tulliver is one of submission. In portraying these two female protagonists, the techniques employed by the two authors focus our attention on such contrasts as artifacts vs. nature image as projection of the psyche; romantic approach vs. intellectual treatment in revealing character's inner life; and straightforwardness vs. subtlety in narrative style. The impact of Jane Eyre is more social while the influence of The Mill on the Floss is more psychological. They have different influences on the later writers, who consequently came up with quite distinct female protagonists in their own literary creation.