最終更新日時:2017年 9月 4日
日本英語表現学会 紀要『英語表現研究』第 31・32合併号 英文梗概
English Usage and Style No.31, 32 Synopsis

Examining Charlotte Brontë’s Ideal View of Society through Comparing the End of Villette with the End of The Professor

Mayako Sato

In this paper, against the background of the middle of the nineteenth century, I will examine, from a cultural perspective, the end of Villette (1853), which Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) wrote, through comparisons to the end of The Professor (1857), which she had completed in the first half of 1846. Both novels are based on the same plot. However, at the end of The Professor, the heroine, Frances Evans Henri makes herself accepted in society after marriage. But on the other hand, at the end of Villette, the heroine, Lucy Snowe tries desperately to be accepted in society, by her own ability, unmarried. This difference between Frances and Lucy’s views of society, with the changing times, shows that Brontë had gradually resolved to remain unmarried. Actually, society at the time had not received unmarried women in a positive light. Brontë tried to modernize the old view of society through the medium of Lucy, at the end of Villette. Thus, this study will be able to give us a path to evaluate Brontë’s confrontational attitude to the social problems among unmarried women.