....you too have power over me' : oppression in the life and work of Charlotte Bronte

Abstract

The writings of Charlotte Bronte are informed by the oppression that underpinned her society. Within the hierarchically structured society of Victorian England Bronte occupied a space of 'otherness' by virtue of her social position and her gender. Her desire to enter into the arena of creative writing, not usually the precinct of women, resulted in Bronte experiencing further backgrounding through her exclusion to this world. This thesis interrogates Bronte as a victim of oppression through its analysis of her life, particularly the early formative period of childhood and adolescence, and how she translated this oppression in her writings. This thesis confines its textual analysis to Bronte's most widely known texts, Jane Eyre and Villette. Through the characterisations of not only the heroines and narrators of these novels, Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe, but also the other characters who inhabit these texts, Bronte consciously and unconsciously explored alienation, disenfranchisement, oppression and control. This thesis examines the way in which Bronte was informed by her world and indoctrinated by the hierarchical structure of her society making her as unaware to the manifestations of oppression in some situations as she was aware to it in others. The theoretical approach in this thesis is informed by sociologists who engaged in studies of oppression - Vilfredo Pareto and Robert Michels. In investigating alienation in both Bronte's life and her work, this thesis also concerns itself with the research of Harry C. Triandis on collectivism and individualism. Central also to the arguments and analysis presented is the work of activist and writer Audre Lorde and her assertion of the 'mythical norm'.

Date of Award	2011
Original language	English