Open AccessThe Ideological Discourse of Charlotte Brontë in 'Shirley'
Author(s) -
Vicente Segura Martínez
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
complutense journal of english studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2386-3935
pISSN - 2386-6624
DOI - 10.5209/cjes.66924
Subject(s) - solidarity , ideology , sociology , narrative , cohesion (chemistry) , democracy , plot (graphics) , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , social democracy , gender studies , context (archaeology) , aesthetics , literature , history , law , art , political science , politics , chemistry , statistics , physics , mathematics , organic chemistry , archaeology , quantum mechanics
This paper analyses the linguistic changes arising from the formation of workers’ culture during the Industrial Revolution, as well as the effects of the pastoral work of the Anglican church, and its reflection on the Victorian literature produced by Charlotte Brontë. Specifically, this analysis is based on the parallelism established by this novelist between the values that lie behind the concepts of unionism and solidarity and her fight against the social conventions concerning marriage, as reflected in the novel Shirley. In fact, the human values that derive from these concepts were an inspiration that Brontë uses to provide cohesion and coherence to the plot of the novel within a narrative framework in which she minimizes the class difference between two young women: Caroline and Shirley. Brontë thereby shows that this class difference is not an obstacle for both women to share and feel the positive effects of these values within a social context dominated by social conventions regarding marriage.
Key Words: democracy, culture, Luddites, unionism and solidarity.