Fairy Tales and Independent Female Heroines in Jane Eyre and “The Wife of Bath's Tale”

Abstract

In my thesis I analyse Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from the perspective that both the novel and the tale carry an implicit fairy tale-like reading - a subtext - which makes it possible for the female heroines to gain and maintain autonomy and mastery over the male protagonists and being handled equally in a patriarchal social system. First I put the emphasis on the fairy elements in both narratives and then I consider how the heroines use their fairy magic and power in order to remain independent.