The New Woman in Victorian Literature

Abstract

The Victorian era was defined as a series of changes in regards to the social, political and moral aspects of England during the nineteenth century. Many works during the Victorian period such as Sarah Stickney Ellis’ The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits, Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House, and John Ruskin’s Of Queens’ Gardens show a complex understanding of the intricate practices constituting Victorian women’s lives and reveal the domestic ideology of the time. In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins the reader is able to see the tensions of the era regarding the Woman Question; in particular, the focus within these novels is on the woman as working for or against the conservative principles of the Victorian Era. The characters of Jane Eyre, Lucy Audley, and Marian Halcombe work against the conventions of idealized femininity during the Victorian era as described in the majority of the works of the time.