"cinderella" The Evolution Of The Image Of British Women Fiction

This thesis makes a systematic research on the transformative process of the classical Cinderella in female writers' novels within almost half a century, from the early Fanny Burney to the later Bronte Sisters. During these transformations, new connotations have been given and injected to each "Cinderella", from a rather negative, docile and passive one in fairly tales to a more insightful, intellectual and active one meeting the demands of new females. It is found that such process has well displayed the historical evolution of female consciousness from the recessive and weak one to the dominant and stronger one. Finally, a new "heroine", who aspires for the subversion to the traditional female concepts and asks for the independence and equal rights between men and women, has come out under Charlotte Bronte's pen, whose name is Jane Eyre.