Bronte, Trollope and Collins’ Heroine Characterizations and Their Views on Victorian Women

Abstract

By looking at how authors characterize their characters in novels, by analyzing how authors make their characters talk, behave, think, we can catch a glimpse of how they think of their characters, as well as a specific social group those characters represent. In this paper, we will focus on Charlotte Bronte, Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins’ different views on their heroines’ nature and on Victorian women’s nature in general by extension, based on their different heroine characterizations and their usages of language to do so in Jane Eyre, Barchester Towers and The Woman in White. Generally, this paper reaches the conclusion that Bronte hopes Victorian women be affectionate and independent; Collins hopes them be innocent and submissive, while Trollope rejects female conformity, and views them as varied and multifaceted individuals.