Who is feminist?
——A comparative analysis between Jane Eyre and Bluebeard
“I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third story: narrow, low, and dim with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle”. (Bronte, 91) Published in 1847 and 1697, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre greatly resembles Charles Perraul’s Blue Beard in multiple aspects. Throughout the story, a number of allusions can be drawn, For example, like Blue Beard having committed the horrible crime of killing his previous wives, Rochester also has an awful past, a secret which he tries to hide in the locked attic. Moreover, studies…show more content… In doing so, a historical development of society’s attitude toward women is displayed, striving to answer the question: how both stories, respectively and collectively, challenge society’s traditional perception of women? Through a comparison between Jane Eyre and Bluebeard, women’s living situation in a patriarchal society is manifested to be full of hardships. The similarities and differences in character setting, story structure and narrators not only demonstrate the challenges women face in defeat of their long-oppressed rights and freedom, but also addresses a feminist attitude as a solution to this social issue in modern…show more content… It is noted that the story of Jane Eyre is narrated by Jane Eyre, a female perspective throughout the book. Male characters are silenced and their opinions are not allowed to be expressed, which, in a way, compels male figures to become role players. However, in Bluebeard, Perrault uses a third-person narrative so that the action and the discourse of both male and female characters are displayed in front of readers. This unbiased perspective endows male and female figures equal freedom, providing readers more transparent information in assessing the morality of characters. In addition, as a female writer in Victorian’s time, Charlotte Brontë herself faced many obstacles to publish Jane Eyre, which is very different from Perrault’s situation. Instead of addressing society’s prejudice of the female, Perrault, as a male author, places his emphasis more in educating children, undermining the feminist concern in his stories. Hence, is Jane Eyre simply a modern version of Bluebeard? Differences between these two tales such as endings and morals raise questions: In which way does Jane Eyre challenge morals in Bluebeard? Being an expanded, modern version of a Bluebeard-like fairytale, to what extent does Jane Eyre succeed in challenging society’s perception of women in the Victorian’s Era? What is the message Jane Eye tries to
