摘 要:《简爱》和《红楼梦》是两部描写众多女性人物的著作。《简爱》对当时女性的生存状态进行了真实的揭露，鼓励女性独立，提倡平等和反叛精神。《红楼梦》是一部中国伟大的小说，通过对女性心理世界的洞察及描述，揭示了中国封建社会中女性的自我意识和反叛精神。本文以女性主义文学批评理论为指导,讨论了两部小说中不同背景下典型女性人物形象的异同点,并对其异同进行对比分析,结果表明,《简爱》和《红楼梦》中的典型女性人物的人格魅力最终推动了当时社会下的女性意识的发展。希望本文有利于加深读者对这两部著作的理解。

关键词：《简爱》；《红楼梦》；女性意识；女性形象

Abstract:Jane Eyre and A Dream of Red Mansions are two famous novels about the female character. Jane Eyre reveals the reality of women’s living standards, encourages women’s intelligence and appeals women’s independence and rebellious spirits. A Dream of Red Mansions is an excellent novel in China, which describes females and female’s activities, shows the mental world and describes the female’s self-consciousness and betrayal spirit in Chinese feudal society. This paper mainly discusses the typical female characters by comparing their similarities and differences in their personality traits. On the basis of the theory—feminist criticism, it aims to make a comparative analysis of the female consciousness through comparing the typical characters both in similarities and differences. Eventually, the typical female characters in these two novels promote the development of female consciousness at that time. Hopefully, this paper is beneficial to the understanding of the two novels.

Key words: Jane Eyre; A Dream of Red Mansions; female consciousness; female characters

Contents

摘 要 iii

Abstract iii

I. Introduction 3

II. An Overview of the Authors and Their Novels 3

2.1 Cao Xueqin and A Dream of Red Mansions 3

2.1.1 Cao Xueqin 3

2.1.2 A Dream of Red Mansions 3

2.2 Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre 3

2.2.1 Charlotte Bronte 3

2.2.2 Jane Eyre 3

III. A Comparative Analysis of Female Characters of Jane Eyre and A         Dream of Red Mansion 3

3.1 Similarity in Female Characters 3

3.1.1 Similarity in Personalities 3

3.1.2 Similarity in Vision of  Love 3

3.1.3 Similarity in Female Consciousness 3

3.1.4 Similarity in Social Status 3

3.2 Differences in Female Characters 3

3.2.1 Differences in Personalities 3

3.2.2 Differences in Social Status 3

3.2.3 Differences in Culture 3

IV. The Limitations of Female Characters of Jane Eyre and A Dream of Red Mansion 3

4.1 Limitations in Female Consciousness 3

4.2 Limitations in Social Background 3

V. Conclusion 3

Bibliography 3

Acknowledgements 3

A Comparative Analysis of the Female Character in Jane Eyre and A Dream of Red Mansions

I. Introduction

A Dream of Red Mansions is written by Cao Xueqin, which is based on the prosperity and the decline of Jia’s family and mainly describes the love among Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. Every person in this novel  fights against the feudal ethical code, only to get a miserable destiny. The miserable destiny indicates the decline of feudal society. A Dream of Red Mansions not only breaks up the traditional ideologies, but also describes Cao Xueqin’s unique views on females. Meanwhile, in 19th century, male writers dominate the literature world, since  women are in a low social status and education. Jane Eyre is written by an English writer Charlotte Bronte, who is a famous woman writer in the world. This novel describes a young woman, Jane, who is an orphan, poor and plain, but the miserable experience doesn’t make her surrender to the destiny. With her persistent efforts, she becomes a compassionate woman. There are some studies abroad, such as the studies of Milton. Milton makes a detailed pision towards Jane Eyre. The characters are analyzed in a detailed manner. At the beginning of the book, the introduction to the author can help people to learn the work better. Bronte puts her personal emotion into the Jane Eyre when she describes Jane. The experience of Bronte makes readers realize the female consciousness better in that age. In other words, the female consciousness doesn’t come from the characters in the novel but from the understanding of female authors towards feminist. And there are some studies at home, such as Li Weiping’s studies on females. His book expounds the evolution process of female novels in England and many things about the development, the historical background and social reality about the female consciousness. Ma Ruifang who makes a study about the A Dream of Red Mansions and combines female characters with the characters’ personalities. From the tragedy love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, she reveals the reality of the feudal society. This paper mainly discusses the typical female characters in these two novels by comparing the similarities and differences about their personalities, loves, female consciousness and social status and also makes an analysis of the reasons.