Gender and Power in Victorian Literature: A Comparative Analyses

Abstract

Strict class, gender, and moral dictates defined the social structure of the (1837-1901) Victorian era. In this framework, gender roles, especially for women, were limiting and complicated. By comparing four of the major novels of the period, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, George Eliot's Middlemarch, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, it examines representations of gender and power in Victorian literature. Through the focus on the patriarchal texts of the oppressed fighting against the status quo, this research explores how writers of the time reflected societal issues or challenged them outright, disrupting the same in subtle and overt forms and struggles. At the heart of this is the idea of the "New Woman," a disruption of tradition in the form of an intellectual and socially rebellious figure of the time who does not conform to gender roles. Using a feminist, poststructuralist , and queer lens, this study interrogates the representation and resistance of dominant gender roles and power structures. Examining key female and male characters from Jane Eyre and Dorothea Brooke to Tess Durbeyfield and Pip, the article identifies tropes of gendered independence, marriage, intellectual agency, and masculinity. The results, aside from being interesting at first sight, reveal the complicated role of Victorian literature in both upholding and subverting the values of the period, especially when it comes to women and the discourse surrounding autonomy and agency. In conclusion, this article shows that the cross-section between gender and power played out in Victorian fiction is equally reflective of the time shortly before their publication whilst remaining relevant critiques in ongoing conversations and debates about gender equality and autonomy today.