THE PORTRAIT OF THE SPINSTER IN VICTORIAN NOVELS: A SOCIO – FEMINIST STUDY

Abstract

Social Feminism is a branch of feminism which highlights the meaning of class struggle in dealing with social inequalities. It considers closely how the domination of patriarchal figures create gender inequalities. It is based on Marx’s class oppression theory mentioned in his communist Manifesto which argues that Capitalism is cause of oppressive structures. The paper applies this theory on some Victorian novels that deal with the image of spinsters, and their sufferings. The unmarried women suffer due to the patriarchal view of the society during that era. The need for the financial support, and to prove that they are wanted, makes the idea of gaining a husband a huge issue for them. The Victorian novelists often depict those spinsters as psychologically ill, mad or as mere objects. Some of those novelists suffered from spinsterhood or raised by a spinster which makes their novels semi-autobiographical. The paper sheds light on the works of William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Dickens’. Those novelists show how women are mistreated in a patriarchal when they try to shape their identity which seems to be incomplete without the existence of a man. Nevertheless; society does not give them any other option.