On Female Consciousness

Charlotte Bronte was a great British woman novelist in Victorian age. In the year 1847,she published her masterpiece Jane Eyre with her pen name Currer Bell, which shocked the Great Britain and made her very famous. Charlotte wrote five works in all including Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette and Emma (unfinished). Different from the angels of current society, every female heroine from her works has her distinct personality and strong self-consciousness and reflects the writer's own strong feminine consciousness. Because of her works' permanent enchantment, the researchers' interest was aroused in studying Bronte. Charlotte is a special woman who lived in a remote wilderness; her vision is not wide like Mrs Gaskell. She led a miserable life, which is full of loneliness and sadness, so she focused on her own life, from which she understood the feminine consciousness. Based on the background of that time and Charlotte's inner world, my thesis intends to reveal the cause of Charlotte's feminine consciousness and reappear its course of formation and development, then show its depth and richness in order to understand more deeply and master more exactly.Part I: At the beginning of the thesis, the cause of Charlotte feminine consciousness is demonstrated from three aspects. Firstly, her special personality from her background influences her opinion of the feminine consciousness. Secondly, the contradictory age leads to her meditation about woman and forms her feminine consciousness by analyzing the essence of home angel of Victorian age. Thirdly, the novelist's religious belief resulting from her special life, to a great extent, plays an important role in her feminine consciousness.Part II: My paper reappears the formation course of her feminine consciousness by combining with her experiences and works. Along with Charlotte's life, the paper digs her feminine consciousness from five points. Firstly, the life principle of Charlotte. With the help of her governor experiences, the thesis analyses the hero Frances from Professor and reveals her feminine consciousness of self-respect and self-strengthening. Secondly, the actual predicament and mad choice. Based on Charlotte's predicament of writing Jane Eyre, my thesis studies the Madwoman and explains Charlotte's feminine consciousness of resisting the oppression from husband to uphold her dignity. Thirdly, the progress of predicament and the choice from mad to rational. From Charlotte's understanding of marriage, the thesis presents Jane Eyre's personality and demonstrates human dignity and spiritual equality. Fourthly, bitter life and continual pursuit of feminine destine. From the study of Lucy's thirst for love from Charlotte's lonely and sad life after bereavement, the paper shows the equality of love and explains the richness of her feminine consciousness by comparing with Caroline from Shirley. Finally , the life of short happiness and feminine ideal. On the basis of Charlotte' love story, my thesis analyses her last novel Emma and explains her harmony of human beings.Part III: the thesis studies the feminine voice of her works and presents the writing course from accepting and amending masculine voice to completely getting rid of the fetterfrom the tradition to speak freely, further explains its richness. At the beginning of her writing, Charlotte inherited the masculine voice, and tried to improve the tradition. So in Professor, she told her story in masculine voice, and in Jane Eyre in dual narration, then in Shirley cried out in polyphony. But in Villette, Charlotte got aware of its harm and completely abandoned the tradition, then freely spoke her story in Lucy's tone. Although Charlotte Bronte died too early, she made a great contribution to the literary world and had an effect on the later literature.In the future, I believe that the following scholars must pay more attention to her strong feminine consciousness.