The Victorian outcast: A study of Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre' and George Eliot's 'Silas Marner'

This thesis discusses how Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and George Eliot's Silas Marner represent the main character in each text as an outcast. This thesis uses a psychoanalytic approach, as well as a Marxist reading, to show how the "other" and representation of the "other" also represent the struggle for power in Victorian England. At the end of both novels, each of the main characters find further acceptance because of outer forces and the work of others, and these two shifts are supported through a psychological and a Marxist reading of each text. The work of J.S. Mill and his discussion on liberty, as well as the individualist movement, also supports this reading. The power struggles inside the novels represent similar struggles for power in Victorian England, such as the Chartist movement. The struggle for power by the lower classes ties with the struggle for power in each novel.