During the 19th Century, women had many more limitations on their lives than they do now. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert and Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, both illustrate the types of choices that women made in response to those limitations. This paper will compare the actions and strategies adopted by Emma Bovary and Jane Eyre as they both endeavored to reach their goals within the structure of the patriarchal societies in which they lived. Specifically this paper will demonstrate how Bronte uses a woman of a basically good and optimistic nature (if a bit romantic) as an example of how much a woman may achieve within those limitations. Flaubert, on the other hand, uses a woman with much ambition, too much romanticism and not enough sense to illustrate the tragedy caused by thwarted dreams and ambitions. In other words, this comparison will be a case of sense versus (too much) sensibility.
In 1846, the year that Charlotte Bronte began Jane Eyre, she wrote to a friend of hers that
there is no more respectable character on this earth than an unmarried woman who makes her own way through life quietly, perseveringly ù without support of husband or brother. . .[who] retains . . . a well-regulated mind - a disposition to enjoy simple pleasures - fortitude to support inevitable pains, sympathy with the sufferings of others, and willingness to relieve want as far as her means extend (quoted in Murray, 1982, p. 160).
This is basically an optimistic view of what may be in store for an independent woman, although Bronte does seem to paint a picture of someone who lives "inside the lines". Bronte uses Jane Eyre to illustrate her philosophy in a number of ways.
First, Bronte presents the story in the first person from the heroine's point of view. Thus, from the beginning, this story feels as if the heroine was more actively involved in the choices that life gives her, despite the fact that in some cases she has no choice a...