Essay - Jane Austen (1811), Thomas Hardy, and Emily Bronte (1847) Sex...

Jane Austen (1811), Thomas Hardy, and Emily Bronte (1847)

***** And Sensibility

It is well known that the Victorian era was one in which massive inequalities existed between men and women. Women were not allowed to vote, in many cases *****ir right ***** own property was tenuous, and their place in society was extremely conscribed. One would expect, then, to see this reflected in the literature of the era which dealt with ***** lives and relationships of women. This ********** is in fact realized in three of the classics ***** have survived this era: Tess of the d'Urbervilles by ***** Hardy, Sense and ***** by Jane Austen, and Wuthering Heights by Emily *****. Each of these stories deals with the romance of a strong Victorian heroine struggling to survive in a male dom*****ated world. In each, the astute reader will notice the difference in financial power between men and wo*****, the inconsistencies in sexual mores that exist between the genders, and the difference in status made obvious in *****ir different approaches to marriage.

***** the three very significantly not only ***** terms of plot and conclusion, but also in their treatment of gender differences. Generally speaking, Tess of the D'Urbervilles ***** in polemics the inequities women face and *****ir serious consequences for the sex, ***** and Sensibility deals with the full spectrum ***** gender issues while approaching the *****ed system as posing problems for both male and fe***** lovers, and Wu*****ring Heights seeks to transcend gender within love altogether, even though its characters in this sense often fail. It is difficult to say how much of the difference between these three writers is due ***** ***** in the era in which they lived (the various authors were as much as *****ty years apart in their dates of publication) ***** how much was due to the *****s in artist temperament and personal experience or conviction.

What is certain is that, taken *****gether, the three can provide a poign*****nt vignette of ***** *****s, privileges, and constrictions of *****uality in the Victorian era, as it collided painfully w*****h class upheaval and the redistribution of wealth among the new rich.

The difference in financial ***** between men and ***** is a very signifi*****t issue in all three novels. In fact, this ***** arguably provides ***** central plot motivator for both Hardy and Austen's stories, ***** its idealization is a huge part of the social plot prods in Wuthering Heights as well.

In Sense and Sensibility, the ***** difference ***** men and wo***** affects every ***** ***** ***** characters, and is in fact the cause of the family crisis at ***** novel's beginning. In the opening scenes, the reader discovers that the D*****h*****od girls have been left impoverished by their father's death. The family's entire estate has been ***** to their ***** son by his first marriage, due to the patriarchal nature of ***** inheritance laws in England, which dictates ***** an estate goes ***** the nearest male relative. However, it appears the women are