Jane Austen is the first important English female novelist and also ranks among the truly great British novelists. Altogether, she wrote six novels. Sense and sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Northanger Abbey (1814) were written in her early period, which are famous for their humor, wit and sentimentalism. In her last three novels Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815) and Persuasion (1818), the elements of burlesque are gradually taken placed by solemnity. Unfortunately, like most other writers, when Austen was alive, her novels were not as so-well received as they were after her death. In the 19th and 20th century, they had steadily grown popular over time. Based on this, in the academic circle, it is acknowledged that she falls into the category of critical realism (flourished in 1840s and 1850s) though her career chronologically belongs to late romantic period (ended in 1832 with Walter Scott’s death). Although her novels are simple stories of the lives and thoughts of the commonplace people of the upper middle class, her genius as an artist is recognized by readers. It is reported that in an election of the millennium writer held by BBC in 2000, Austen ranked at the second place only after Shakespeare, as the only female in the top 10. So we can say that Jane Austen is the greatest female novelist of that period. 

1.2.2 Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë was born on 30 July 1818 and well-known as one of Brontë Sisters – Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë. They were born in a small village in northern England in a clergy family. In 1820, the family moved from Braford to Haworth of Yorkshire, an isolated moorland with its rather stubborn, prosaic farmers and hand-loom weavers. But the life there provided a moral inspiration and the love of liberty which were nourished in their souls. Brontë sisters encouraged each other and learnt from each other, which relieved the hardship of material shortage and also trained their writing skills. In 1846 three sisters published their joint volume of poems. After that, they all began to write novels. All Brontës are talented, yet they all died at a young age. In their short life, Charlotte Brontë produced four novels, professor (1857), Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849) and Villette (1847), Jane Eyre being her masterpiece. Emily Brontë wrote only one novel entitled Wuthering Heights (1847) but it is regarded as one of the best novels in English literature. The youngest sister Anne Brontë wrote two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and the Tenant of the Wildfell Hall (1849).

According to the biographer of Emily's sister Charlotte Brontë, Emily was an independent, open-minded, pure, resolute, passionate and introverted woman. She had kind of manhood and a strong passion for wilderness where she grew up. Implied by her poetry and the whole life, she was a typical reflection of the view on harmony between human and nature and she was therefore regarded as a mystic. Actually in her short life (1818 – 1848), Emily Brontë neither received complete education, nor experienced a practical relationship or marriage. It is a great surprise to English literature for her only yet wonderfully fascinating novel – Wuthering Heights. 

1.3 Literature Review

This thesis focuses on the aspect of the marriage values and female consciousness of Jane Austen and Emily Brontë through the comparative analysis of the heroines in Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights.

The analyses of Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights at home and abroad are different. The two novels being classic works in the west for more than one century, most essays about them actually were written decades of years ago. Influenced by the ethos of the western countries, the western researchers are more likely to analyze the novels from their social and philosophical value but less marriage part. In Dorothy Van Ghent’s essay The English Novel: Form and Function (1953), as an example, pride and prejudice is described as illuminating “the difficult and delicate reconciliation of the sensitively developed inpidual with the terms of his social existence”. To be more detailed, it means that unless Elizabeth recognizes that inpidualism must find its social limitations and Darcy admits that tradition without inpidual energy is empty form, they cannot have a contended ending. And for Wuthering Heights, it seems that discussion about revenge is more popular. The essays I can find about love are few. For instance, Graeme Tytler expounds the love between Catherine and Heathcliff from the perspective of identification that the repeated sentence “I am Heathcliff!” consolidates Heathcliff’s position in Catherine’ mind (2006). After searching information on-line and in the library, it turns out that the English essays about marriage view are few let alone the comparable essays between Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights.  《傲慢与偏见》与《呼啸山庄》女主人公的比较研究(3):http://www.chuibin.com/yingyu/lunwen_206055.html