Movie - Feminist Themes in Jane Eyre, Novel and Film Versions

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An Analysis of Feminist Themes in Jane Eyre and its Film Versions

Concern for women's rights dates from the Enlightenment, when the liberal, egalitarian, and reformist ideals of that period began to be extended from the bourgeoisie, peasants, and urban laborers to women as well. As did most interest groups of the time, feminists gained force and stability through its writing. The period's blossoming ideas concerning women's rights were fully set forth in Judith Murray’s On the Equality of the Sexes in 1790. Dr. Allyson Dowta, author of Women and the Written Word, states that without Margaret Wollstoncraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792, “the feminist movement would have remained a fledgling and unconnected effort. Wollstoncraft’s contribution…united feminists worldwide” (95). In 1810, Charlotte Smith’s What Is She? joined this list of tour de force feminist works, followed by Lucy Aikin’s Epistles on Women in 1820, Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem in 1831, and Margaret Fuller’s landmark book Women in the Nineteenth Century, an encouragement for women to liberate themselves from societal bondage, in 1845.

Though this type of analysis of the female condition became more and more abundant throughout the 1800’s, feminist literature didn’t remain entirely expository. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, feminist writing came in a genre of popular short stories, poems, and works written apparently for entertainment. Margaret Holford’s Margaret of Anjou, a novella published in 1816, Elizabeth Ogilvy’s “The Geniad”, a collection of five autobiographical poems published in 1825, and Catherine Williams’ Fall River, a novella published in 1833, were all notable examples of this t...

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Ellis, Kate and Kaplan, Ann. Nineteenth Century Women at the Movies: Adapting Classic Women’s Fiction to Film. Bowling Green, OH: Popular, 1999

Jane Eyre. Dir. Christy Cabanne. Perf. Virginia Bruce, Colin Clive, and Beryl Mercer. 1934.

Jane Eyre. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsborough, and Anna Paquin. 1996

Jane Eyre. Dir. Julian Aymes. Perf. Timothy Dalton, Zelah Clarke. 1983

Jane Eyre. Dir. Robert Stevenson. Perf. Joan Fontaine, Orson Welles, and Margaret O’Brien. 1944

Peters, Joan D. “Finding a Voice: Towards a Woman’s Discourse in Dialogue in the Narration of Jane Eyre.” Studies in the Novel. 23 no 2. (1991): 217-36.

Zonana, Joyce. “The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyre.” Signs. 18 no 3. (1993): 592-617

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