Topic > Film - Feminist themes in Jane Eyre, novels and films...

An analysis of feminist themes in Jane Eyre and its film versions Concern for women's rights dates back to the Enlightenment, when liberal ideals, egalitarians and reformists of that The period began to extend from the bourgeoisie, peasants and urban workers to women as well. Like most interest groups of the time, feminists gained strength and stability through her writing. The period's burgeoning ideas regarding 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 A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Margaret Wollstoncraft, published in 1792, “the feminist movement would remain a nascent and disjointed effort. Wollstoncraft's contribution…feminists united around the world” (95). In 1810, What Is She? They 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 seminal book Women in the Nineteenth Century, an encouragement for women to free themselves from the slavery of society, in 1845. Although this type of analysis of the female condition became increasingly abundant throughout the nineteenth century, feminist literature did not remain entirely expository. Beginning in the early 19th century, feminist writing transformed into a genre of folktales, poems, and works written ostensibly 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's Fall River, a novella published in 1833, were all notable examples of this t. ..... middle of paper ...... Ellis, Kate and Kaplan, Ann. Nineteenth-Century Women in Film: Adapting Classic Women's Fiction to Film. Bowling Green, Ohio: 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. Giuliano Aymes. Perf. Timothy Dalton, Zelah Clarke. 1983Jane Eyre. Director Robert Stevenson. Perf. Joan Fontaine, Orson Welles and Margaret O'Brien. 1944Peters, Joan D. "Finding a Voice: Toward a Woman's Speech in Dialogue in the Narrative 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