Abstract：Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, two masterpieces that describe love and marriage in the first half of the nineteenth century, are full of female awareness about independence and gender equality. This essay tries to analyze the similarity and difference of two novels in the perspective of female awareness. Both Jane Eyre and Elizabeth fight with patriarchy both in family and society and have already awaken female awareness. However, female awareness in two novels varies widely, which is reflected in writing perspective, characters, writing style and the description of social background. In comparison, Elizabeth’s fighting is still confined in the family while Jane Eyre has expanded her fighting into the society for she thinks highly of the importance of financial independence. Elizabeth regards love as a way to achieve equality and independence but Jane Eyre maintains that women should rely on themselves. As for the relationship between men and women, Elizabeth values the position of men in society and marriage while Jane Eyre maintains that women can be superior to men. Generally speaking, female awareness in Elizabeth is gender and tender while Jane Eyre is radical and powerful.

Key words: patriarchy; marriage; female awareness; independence; equality

女性意识的转变-对比《简爱》和《傲慢与偏见》

摘  要：夏洛蒂·勃朗特的《简爱》和简·奥斯丁的《傲慢与偏见》是十九世纪上半叶的两部描写爱情和婚姻的著作，其中充满了关于女性独立和平等的女性主义思想。本文尝试从女权主义的角度分析两篇小说的相似之处和不同之处。 两个女主角简爱和伊丽莎白都开始在家庭和社会中反抗父权制，并且他们的女性意识都开始觉醒。然而，两部小说中的女性意识不尽相同，反映在写作角度，人物设定，写作风格和社会背景的描写上。 相比之下，伊丽莎白的抗争依然被限制在家庭之中，而简爱重视经济独立对女性独立的重要性，已经将抗争扩展到社会之中。伊丽莎白将爱情视为实现独立和平等的方式，然而简爱坚信女性应该完全依靠自己。在男女地位关系的问题上，伊丽莎白尊重男性在婚姻和社会的地位，简爱认为女性的地位可以高于男性。总而言之，《傲慢与偏见》中的女性意识更温和而《简爱》中的女性意识更激进和强烈.

关键词：父权制；婚姻；女性意识；独立；平等

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Jane Austin and her Pride and prejudice 1

1.2 Charlotte Bronte and her Jane Eyre 1

1.3 The Purpose of the Essay 2

1.4 Literature Review 2

2. The Similarity of Female Awareness in Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice 3

2.1The Fighting against Patriarchy 3

2.2The Awakening of Female Awareness 4

3. The Comparison of Female Awareness in Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice 6

3.1 The Comparison in Writing Perspective 6

3.2 The Comparison in Characters 6

3.3 The Comparison in the Description of Social Background 9

3.4 The Comparison in Writing Style 9

3.5 The Comparison in Women’s Positions 10

4．Conclusion 11

References 15

1. Introduction

1.1 Jane Austin and her Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austin is an English female novelist at the end of the eighteenth century. Austin’s works mainly focus on the love among the landed gentry. Her novels, including Pride and Prejudice are considered literary classics, bridging the gap between romanticism and realism.

Jane Austin leaves eight great novels to the world. Among them, Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813 anonymously, is one of the most impressive novels that attract a lot of attention. The story is set in an English village where Mr. Bennet and his family live in. Since Mr. Bennet’s property is entitled, none of his daughters can inherit it, Mrs. Bennet’s biggest hope is that her daughters can marry to rich men to support the family. And their new neighbor, Mr. Bingley, a rich single gentleman, is regarded as the perfect husband. At a purposely arranged ball, Bingley is fully attracted by the eldest daughter, Jane. Yet his best friend Darcy tries his best to break them up for he detests Mrs. Bennet’s vulgarity and the vanity of her three youngest daughters. Elizabeth, the second daughter, is also offended by Darcy’s arrogance. However, through a series of events, Darcy is attracted by Elizabeth’s quick wit as well as independent mind and falls in love with her. Gradually Elizabeth also changes her prejudice against Darcy and better understands Darcy’s essence of goodness. After Darcy helps to solve the elopement of Lydia and Wickham, the initial misunderstanding ends in mutual understanding and both of the couples marry happily.