Gothic Madwomen: A Comparative Study of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.211020.169How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, female characters, Patriarchy, stereotypes, “crazy” women
- Abstract
From the perspective of Feminism and Gothic Studies, this paper Discusses Two novels by famous female writers, Brontë family’s Wuthering Heights (1847) and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), focus on the two novels in which Catherine and Rebecca two female characters. The traditional Gothic literature presents the female characters in the form of polarization, covering them with the veil of stereotype, which is a great obstacle to discover and convey the true thoughts and feelings of the female characters. However, Catherine used her distinct personality and complex experience to blur the lines drawn by traditional patriarchal culture. Rebecca’s tragedy is not due to her Bohemian, but due to the whole Patriarchal Society’s heavy restrictions and constraints under the female alienation. The two female characters’deviance is a kind of criticism and Innuendo to the reality, revealing the women’s sadness of being bound by marriage and the helplessness of being unable to break away from the control of Patriarchy. They may all be “crazy” women in the secular sense, but their “crazy” is a powerful spiritual strength when they break the shackles placed on women by Patriarchy, which is the best proof of their resistance and struggle.
- Copyright
- © 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Wang Xinyue PY - 2021 DA - 2021/10/21 TI - Gothic Madwomen: A Comparative Study of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca BT - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Public Relations and Social Sciences (ICPRSS 2021) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 287 EP - 290 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211020.169 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.211020.169 ID - Xinyue2021 ER -