The aim of my article is to uncover the deep semiotic relation existing between Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and George Sand’s Indiana (1832), highlighting the proto-feminist elements that characterize both novels and drawing a comparative analysis of the two plots centered on the difficult journey of initiation of two young women physically and emotionally imprisoned by the laws of patriarchal society. Both novels follow a track of self-discovery through a progressive and circular development that shows below the surface plot, affirming social conventions, a submerged plot encoding rebellion. Through a semiotic analysis of the deep structure of the two novels my article intends to reveal a three-stage development of the protagonists, strictly connected to their progressive awakening to romantic and physical love. Moreover an analysis of the isotopic structure of the two texts will show how the dichotomy Nature vs. Culture undermines the two plots, from the micro to the macro levels of the texts. The conflict between Nature and Culture is at the origin of other thematic and figurative isotopies: love vs. marriage, physical vs. spiritual love, freedom vs. slavery, faith vs. religion, Creole vs. English, dark vs. light etc. These isotopies underline and support in both novels a distortion of the formalized conventions of love, highlighting the thematic conflict between woman’s individual desire and the limits set to her within a patriarchal society.
| Published in | International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 2, Issue 6) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14 |
| Page(s) | 252-257 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Jane Eyre, Indiana, Domestic Novels, Victorian Novels, Feminist Criticism
| [1] | Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction. A political history of the novel. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. |
| [2] | Auerbach, Nina. The woman and the Demon. The Life of a Victorian Myth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. |
| [3] | De Rougemont, Denis. L’Amour et l’Occident. Paris: Plon, 1939 and 1950. Republished by « 10/18 » ed. 2001. |
| [4] | Belsey, Catherine. Desire. Love stories in Western Culture. Blackwell 1994. |
| [5] | Bourdieu, Pierre. La domination masculine. Paris: Èditions du Seuil, 1998. |
| [6] | Brontë, Charlotte , Jane Eyre, ed. Stevie Davies, London: Penguin Classics, 2006. Citations of the text are to this edition. |
| [7] | Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1979. |
| [8] | Haskett, Kelsey, “Spirituality and Feminism in George Sand’s Indiana”, Journal of Christianity and Foreign Languages, no. 9, 2008, 47-60. |
| [9] | Foucault, Michel. Histoire de la sexualité. Volume 1. Paris: Èditions Gallimard, 1976. |
| [10] | Murdoch, Adlai, “Ghosts in the Mirror: Colonialism and Creole Indeterminacy in Brontë and Sand”, College Literature 29.1 (Winter 2002), 1-31. |
| [11] | Russell, Danielle, “Revisiting the Attic. Recognizing the shared spaces of Jane Eyre and Beloved” in Federico Annette R., Gilbert and Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic after thirty years, Missouri:University of Missouri Press, 2009, 127-148. |
| [12] | Sabiston, Elisabeth Jane, “Not Carved in Stone: Women’s Heart and Women’s Texts in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, in Private Sphere to World Stage: from Austen to Eliot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008, 55-93. |
| [13] | Sand, George. Indiana. Paris: Gallimard, 1984. Citations of the text are to this edition. |
| [14] | Showalter, Elaine. A literature of their own, Princetorn: Princeton University Press, 1977. |
| [15] | Williams, Raymond. The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence. London: Chatto and Windus, 1970. |
| [16] | Wilkinson, Marta L., Antigone’s Daughters: Gender, Family and Expression in the Modern Novel, in Studies on themes and motifs in literature, Volume 97, New York: Peter Lang, 2008. |
APA Style
Barbara Dell’Abate-Çelebi. (2014). The Struggle for Woman’s Place and Voice in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and George Sand’s Indiana. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 2(6), 252-257. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14
ACS Style
Barbara Dell’Abate-Çelebi. The Struggle for Woman’s Place and Voice in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and George Sand’s Indiana. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2014, 2(6), 252-257. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14,
author = {Barbara Dell’Abate-Çelebi},
title = {The Struggle for Woman’s Place and Voice in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and George Sand’s Indiana},
journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
volume = {2},
number = {6},
pages = {252-257},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20140206.14},
abstract = {The aim of my article is to uncover the deep semiotic relation existing between Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and George Sand’s Indiana (1832), highlighting the proto-feminist elements that characterize both novels and drawing a comparative analysis of the two plots centered on the difficult journey of initiation of two young women physically and emotionally imprisoned by the laws of patriarchal society. Both novels follow a track of self-discovery through a progressive and circular development that shows below the surface plot, affirming social conventions, a submerged plot encoding rebellion. Through a semiotic analysis of the deep structure of the two novels my article intends to reveal a three-stage development of the protagonists, strictly connected to their progressive awakening to romantic and physical love. Moreover an analysis of the isotopic structure of the two texts will show how the dichotomy Nature vs. Culture undermines the two plots, from the micro to the macro levels of the texts. The conflict between Nature and Culture is at the origin of other thematic and figurative isotopies: love vs. marriage, physical vs. spiritual love, freedom vs. slavery, faith vs. religion, Creole vs. English, dark vs. light etc. These isotopies underline and support in both novels a distortion of the formalized conventions of love, highlighting the thematic conflict between woman’s individual desire and the limits set to her within a patriarchal society.},
year = {2014}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - The Struggle for Woman’s Place and Voice in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and George Sand’s Indiana AU - Barbara Dell’Abate-Çelebi Y1 - 2014/12/31 PY - 2014 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14 DO - 10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14 T2 - International Journal of Literature and Arts JF - International Journal of Literature and Arts JO - International Journal of Literature and Arts SP - 252 EP - 257 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2331-057X UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20140206.14 AB - The aim of my article is to uncover the deep semiotic relation existing between Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and George Sand’s Indiana (1832), highlighting the proto-feminist elements that characterize both novels and drawing a comparative analysis of the two plots centered on the difficult journey of initiation of two young women physically and emotionally imprisoned by the laws of patriarchal society. Both novels follow a track of self-discovery through a progressive and circular development that shows below the surface plot, affirming social conventions, a submerged plot encoding rebellion. Through a semiotic analysis of the deep structure of the two novels my article intends to reveal a three-stage development of the protagonists, strictly connected to their progressive awakening to romantic and physical love. Moreover an analysis of the isotopic structure of the two texts will show how the dichotomy Nature vs. Culture undermines the two plots, from the micro to the macro levels of the texts. The conflict between Nature and Culture is at the origin of other thematic and figurative isotopies: love vs. marriage, physical vs. spiritual love, freedom vs. slavery, faith vs. religion, Creole vs. English, dark vs. light etc. These isotopies underline and support in both novels a distortion of the formalized conventions of love, highlighting the thematic conflict between woman’s individual desire and the limits set to her within a patriarchal society. VL - 2 IS - 6 ER -
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