Every Meadow Grows a Different Flower – The Influence of Spatial Features on the Nature of Characters in Nineteenth-Century Novels: Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre
| Thesis title in Czech: | Na každé louce roste jiný květ – vliv prostorových prvků na charakter postav v románech devatenáctého století: Pýcha a předsudek, Bouřlivé výšiny a Jane Eyrová |
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| Thesis title in English: | Every Meadow Grows a Different Flower – The Influence of Spatial Features on the Nature of Characters in Nineteenth-Century Novels: Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre |
| Key words: | Priestor|Miesto|Charakteristika|Vývoj|Determinizmus|Vzťahovosť|Krajina|Interiér|Príroda |
| English key words: | Space|Place|Characterisation|Development|Determinism|Relationality|Landscape|Interior|Nature |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2023/2024 |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 03.06.2024 |
| Date of assignment: | 03.06.2024 |
| Administrator's approval: | approved |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 05.06.2024 |
| Date and time of defence: | 12.06.2025 00:00 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 12.05.2025 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 12.06.2025 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D. |
| Guidelines |
| In the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century, questions of fictional space became more prevalent, even though they were ever present in the history of literary thought. However, as Robert T. Tally notes in The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space (2017), unlike time “space was often viewed as mere background or an empty container in which the unfolding of events over some durée could take placeˮ.[1] Space is an entity that characterizes and influences characters in novels as well as the readerʼs perspective and perception throughout the discourse of the story. This thesis aims to examine the spatial effect in relation to the identities and development of the characters in three canonical nineteenth-century novels: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, the description of which is sufficiently extensive for a more thorough analysis. In the selected works, space is undeniably important, and as Isobel Armstrong argues “if we subtract the element of space from the nineteenth century novel it would be hard to say what is leftˮ.[2] Scrutinizing the aforementioned novels through the lense of ̒spatial-turnʼ in literary studies, offers substantial insights into the narrative, thematic and cultural aspects of these novels. Since traditional literary analysis frequently concentrated more on plot, character and theme than on the function of space and place, the spatial perspective has historically been underappreciated. The thesis will also provide an examination of space and what it says about the social structure, themes of isolation and identity. It will not only observe reactions to various stimuli, but will also investigate the ways in which character is produced through the fictional representation of space and place in the novels. My preliminary research questions are as follows: How does the space and place affect the internal development of the characters and shape their views? What is the interplay of space and character? I will argue that Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre illustrate different approaches to the spatial influence on characters.
[1]Robert T. Tally, The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space (Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 2017), 2. [2]Isobel Armstrong, "Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel," 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 17 (2013): 2. |
| References |
| Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Penguin Classics, 2008.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. London: Penguin Classics, 2015. Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. Tally, R. T. Spatiality. London: Routledge, 2012. Tally, Robert T. The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space. Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 2017. Armstrong, Isobel. "Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel." 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 17 (2013).http://19.bbk.ac.uk. Matthews, John T. “Framing in Wuthering Heights.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 27, no. 1 (1985): 25–61. Accessed January 21, 2024.http://www.jstor.org/stable/40754765. Neckles, Christina. “Spatial Anxiety: Adapting the Social Space of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’” Literature/Film Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2012): 30–45. Accessed January 21, 2024.http://www.jstor.org/stable/43798812. |