英国文学导读 (32).pdf

Womens Problems and Female Writers • During the Victorian period there developed a new anxiety about male- female relations and roles in modern society. Men and women’s roles became more sharply defined than at any time in history: • Men: out to work • Women: at home to oversee the domestic duties Female Writers • Women problem started to come to people’s attention and finally developed into the feminist movement. • A group of women writers such as Jane Austen, Mary W. Shelley, the Bronte sisters, Mrs. Gaskell, and George Eliot broke out from the their confinement of a private world and entered into a public world. Reasons • The Industrial Revolution gave women opportunities to earn economic independence, which made women’s liberation possible. The Problem of Women However, women during the Victorian Era did not have many rights. The society was not giving the women any other option to advance or fix the situation that they are in. In 1837 when Queen Victoria came to the throne, married women had no property rights, not even in the proceeds of their own earnings. They had no rights to custody of their own children and were excluded from universities and professions. Feminism • There was a general movement for women’s liberation on the European Continent. • In England, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft criticized the education on women. • In the late period of Victorian Age, a feminist movement started. • The writings of women writers such as the Bronte sisters, Mrs. Gaskell, George Eliot reflected its spirit.有 缘学习更多+谓ygd3076考证资料