Woman, Desire and Education in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Villette

The thesis deals with the position of women in the society and women's nature and role in the Victorian period. Charlotte Brontë's novels Jane Eyre and Villette portray how it was to be a woman in the Victorian age. Thus, this thesis is analysis of these two novels. This analysis had as its aim to truthfully show what were the lives of women like and what it meant to be a woman in the Victorian period. The thesis is divided into five parts. The first part is introduction, the second part deals with the theoretical background where I went over the Victorian age and women in the Victorian age, female subjectivity, education of women and desire and sexuality in the novel. Also, I provided some information about the author of the above mentioned two novels, Charlotte Brontë. Psychological analysis of the novels is also provided in this part. The third part deals with the novel Jane Eyre. In the third part, I provided general information about the novel and dealt with the position of women as seen in the novel Jane Eyre. Here, I provided my conclusions of the analysis when it comes to female subjectivity, women's question, education of women and female desire in this novel. These three subchapters gave theoretical view of these issues mixed with the analysis of the novel. The fourth part deals with the novel Villette. In the fourth part, I provided analysis about the women's question, education of women and female desire conducted in the previous novel, took place in this novel as well. Hence, in these three subchapters I went over the women's question and talked about their political, social, legal and educational rights in the Victorian England and how they are presented in the novel. Also, in the second subchapter I wrote about the education of women in Villette, taking into an account the reality and the situation in the novel, and thus I compared and contrasted the two and put my conclusions on the paper. In the last, third subchapter, I wrote about the desire in Villette and offered a view on the sexuality of the main heroine that defies all the norms and rules of the golden ages of Queen Victoria's reign. In the end, the last, fifth part, is the conclusion where I summarized all the points made in the above mentioned chapters.