The reign of Queen Victoria gave the name to the
period of time between 1937 and 1901: the Victorian Age. During this complex
era, characterized by great hypocrisy and social imbalances, there was a marked
division between male and female skills.
The concept of family was very similar to the Roman
idea of “pater familias” or "father of the
family" who had
absolute rule over his household; in fact his wife and his children had to submit to
his will and his wife’s tasks included only the domestic sphere.
Women’s life was so difficult, since they were
considered as objects and their role was limited to have children, do household
chores and obey their husbands. They were requested to be pure, pious and
chaste; for this reason, they were associated with the ideal of “the angel of
the hearth”, thanks to Coventry Patmore’s literary work The Angel in
the House (1854).
Women did not have any right: they could study only if
it was useful for the maintenance of the house and any one of them who wished to
study or attend university was mocked; they also could not vote and paternal
rights were assigned to men, as well as every trace of money.
During a conference, even the scholar John Ruskin
presented his idea of men as “defenders and creators” and women as “those
who clean the house”.
Yet the condition of women started being in the
spotlight: as they were tired of it, they started overthrowing some of the
rules imposed on them by criticizing contemporary society in their literary
works in which they expressed their rebellion, hidden behind the feminine
ideal.
As I have just affirmed, women who transgressed the
Victorian “code of conduct” were not accepted; but despite the numerous
vetoes imposed by society, some of them - like the Brontë sisters and Elizabeth
Gaskell - decided to undertake the world of literature anyway, by hiding their
identities using male pseudonyms or by remaining anonymous.
Among them, there was Emily Brönte and Louisa May
Alcott.
Emily Brontë was born in 1818 in Thornton (UK); she was
one of six siblings - Charlotte, Branwell, Anne and two other sisters who died
early - and, when they were young, they wrote several creative stories, set in
colonial times. Years later, Charlotte, Emily and Anne published Poems
by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell: these were neutral names, in order not to
lose their real identities. But it was thanks to the publication of their
novels in 1847 - respectively Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes
Grey - that they became famous as the Brontë sisters.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, the USA;
well-known as one of the supporters of women’s emancipation, she also took part
in the Seneca Falls Convention, where the Declaration of
Sentiments for
gender equality was signed by both men and women.
She firstly started writing to solve her economic
problems, but it was not just a source of income, since she also wrote for
herself.
She mainly wrote children’s stories with a didactic
aim; but the novel which made her famous was Little Women.
Wuthering Heights can be considered as the typical Victorian novel, but
it actually departs from the canons of the era. In the novel, almost everything is violated starting
from the family and social order. Thick with the author’s feelings and
thoughts, it was overwhelmed by negative reviews since it criticized
colonialism and women’s condition.
The feminine characters are different from the standards
of the Victorian Age: Catherine Earnshaw is the protagonist. When she was a
child, she was proud, passionate and rebellious; in addition, this
strong-willed girl was wild and constantly in contact with nature, one of
the most important themes of the novel.
Right after her stay in Thrushcross Grange, the house
of the Linton family, Catherine came back home completely different: she had
become a model little girl, clean and well-dressed; she did not hate the
Lintons anymore, but she had become almost like them.
Little Women narrates the story of the March family, composed of a
father who went to war, a mother and four teenage daughters: Meg, Jo, Beth and
Amy. This is a humble family which is always ready to help anyone
in need, despite all their problems. The protagonists are the four
sisters: Meg represents
the conventional and good woman, Jo is the book lover (seemingly a
projection of Louisa May Alcott herself), Beth is good and fragile and Amy,
vain and smart, is good at
manipulating other people.
In the following analysis, you can discover
differences and similarities of these two masterpieces and their authors.
These two novels have different origins: respectively,
they belong to English and American literature.
Wuthering Heights is an unconventional novel, since its features were
different from what Victorian standards required and many critics responded
negatively to this strange novel. There are gothic
elements like Catherine’s ghost, it contains aspects of a romance, bildungsroman (coming-of-age
narrative), and revenge tragedy. Besides,
it was controversial
for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, and for its challenges
to Victorian morality as well as
religious and social values.
On the other hand, Little Women has a
didactic aim and has become renowned as a masterpiece of childhood literature;
unlike Wuthering Heights, it embodies Victorian values, even if
Louisa May Alcott wrote, under pseudonym, other literary works not in
compliance with them.
The March sisters are worried about their father and
they are aware of the sacrifices they have to make, yet they are able to be
caring and generous to people in trouble - a good example of this is the
Christmas breakfast they prepare for their poor neighbors.
As a comparison with the other novel, we can mention
the scene where Isabella and Edgar Linton fight for a toy; so, the different
behavior between the March sisters and the young Lintons is clear: the latter,
even though they are wealthy, fight not to share what they possess.
There are lots of similarities between the two novels’
characters: Meg March’s “maternal” and caring approach makes her similar to
Ellen Dean; Jo March and Catherine Earnshaw look similar in their
being rebellious and wild, but at the end of the novel, they both marry and
accomplish Victorian responsibilities; Amy March and Isabella Linton are
similar in terms of their being spoiled; Cathy Linton in her early childhood,
instead, could be associated with Beth March’s good soul.
Both Emily Brontë and Louisa May Alcott described
somehow their families in their novels: Emily created the character of Hindley
by making a caricature of her brother Branwell, while Louisa represented her
sisters and herself in the March sisters.
The authors themselves can be compared: both Emily
Brontë and Louisa May Alcott tried to go beyond the strict standards of their
era; it is important to say that, although Wuthering Heights and Little
Women are different on several ways, these two women did not stand
still in front of the injustices and miseries of the Victorian Age and fought
them through literature, creating two of the most significant novels of all
times.
Benedetta Renzetti, 5^C Linguistico
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