Jane Eyre - Early Soap Opera or Feminist Novel?

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Department of English and Linguistics), course: Proseminar, language: English, abstract: A wide range of labels has been attributed to Jane Eyre: gothic novel, Bildungsroman, love story, feminist novel, social novel and many more. I am going to take a closer look at the melodramatic, soap-operatic elements of the novel, analyse their function and contrast them to the feminist ideas that become apparent throughout the novel. First, I will define the terms "e;soap opera"e; and "e;feminist novel"e;, point out several characteristics of these genres and demonstrate how they apply to Jane Eyre by testing them in the context of several text passages. Finally, I will show that Jane Eyre is neither a soap opera nor a feminist novel, but that the author uses elements of a soap opera to delude the readers and play with them, as well as to present her feminist views in a way that makes the readers ponder about them.