Women Community and Relations: A Comparative Study in Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Rebecca (1938)

Abstract

With the steady decline of women as characters and authors in recent literature, this article targets the revaluation of the role of women in aesthetics, in general, and, particularly, in gender issues. Therefore, in the comparative analysis of one-century-distant novels, this article hypothesizes that woman represented the core of Victorian narratives and social representations and underwent the constraints of society through relationships designed for female characters within a smaller or larger community of women. To corroborate it, the analysis of Pride and Prejudice and Rebecca shall, at first, reflect a narrative that revolve around women’s central involvement in the society defined by patriarchy through a substratum rendering rules and relationships which characterized their community. Secondly, with a gendered analysis, this work must highlight women’s reactions witnessing female authors’ conceptions in terms of conformism and non-conformism.

Keywords

• accomplishment
• patriarcat
• gossip
• stereotypes
• marriage