Marxist Feminism in Victorian Times: How Anti-Capitalist Ideology Makes Jane Eyre and Vivie Warren Such Poignant Female Heroines in Literature Puja Harikumar College

Nobody with any literary merit would deny that the title character of Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre and Vivie Warren of George Bernard Shaw’s play, Mrs. Warren’s Profession are groundbreaking feminist characters of Victorian Literature. There is no doubt that Vivie’s unrelenting decision to remain a spinster at the story’s end is incredibly radical for a Victorian woman, and scholar Jean Wyatt is correct in stating that Jane Eyre’s “imagery of enclosure and escape and it’s doubling of the female self into the good girl, Jane and the criminally passionate Bertha reflect the experiences and corresponding psychic patterns of women living under patriarchy” (Wyatt, 199). While no one denies the feminist themes of these respective texts, in order to understand the true extent of how groundbreaking Vivie and Jane are for their time, one must analyze these characters in terms of their social status in addition to their gender. Many critics fail to realize that both women belonging to the lower class plays a large part in what makes their actions so radical for the Victorian era. Since Jane and Vivie are working class women, they have the perspective required to see the ramifications of both capitalism and the patriarchy on their...