Women writers and feminism Jane Austen and Agatha Christie

Table of Contents

Foreword...........................................................................................3
Introduction.......................................................................................4
Chapter 1: Feminist literature..........................................................5
Chapter 2: Jane Austen's Biography..............................................6
Chapter 3: Agatha Christie's Biography.........................................7
Chapter 4: The feminist tendencies of Jane Austen's novels-.8
Chapter 5:The feminist tendencies of Agatha Christie's novels..9
Conclusions10
Bibliography...11
Annexes...12

Foreword

This certificate paper presents the movement known as

feminism and especially its impact over literature. The problem
of feminism is being discussed all over the world due to the fact
that along a century it changed the course of history.
The seven demands which were requested in the past are of
great importance in the present day: equal pay, opportunities
and education, financial and legal independence, reproductive
rights and better child care.
At the same time, this paper contains different arguments
brought by the feminist writers Jane Austen and Agatha Christie
and their contribution to the evolution of modern literature.
Furthermore, the paper will prove the existence of feminist
tendencies in the writers works with examples of well-known
novels.

Introduction

The idea of discussing women's

cultural contributions as a separate
category has a long history. Lists of
exemplary women can be found as
far back as the 8th century BC, when
Hesiod compiled Catalogue of
Women a list of heroines and
goddesses. Plutarch listed heroic
and artistic women in his Moralia. In
the medieval period, Boccaccio used
mythic and biblical women as moral
exemplars . British writers, as in so
many other instances, embraced the
classical models and made them
their own.

Chapter 1: Feminist literature

The first chapter presents

feminism and literature
and their evolution in
history and examples of
women writers who have
been eminently
distinguished for their
learning, genius, virtue,
piety, and other excellent
endowments.

Chapter 2: Jane Austen's Biography

In the second chapter I

present some
biographical details of
Jane Austen who was
an English novelist
whose works of romantic
fiction earned her a
place as one of the most
widely read writers in
English literature.

Chapter 3: Agatha Christie's

Biography

The third chapter is mainly

centred upon Agatha
Christie's Biography the
most prolific English Queen
of Crime author of worldrenown created such famous
detectives as Hercule Poirot,
the eccentric Belgian who
relied on his keen grasp of
logic to nab crooks.

Chapter 4: The feminist tendencies of

Jane Austen's novels

In the fourth chapter I present the

feminist tendencies of Jane
Austen's novels because she has
the reputation of only writing about
young women whose only interest
in life was marriage and is often
derided because of it. She wrote
about the relationships between
men and women, the problems of
women in her day and had some
criticisms of society, especially as it
affected women.

Chapter 5:The feminist tendencies of

Agatha Christie's novels

The fifth chapter presents

the feminist tendencies
of Agatha Christie's
novels and the answer to
the question : is Christie
a feminist or anti-feminist
writer, or do her works
fall somewhere in
between, in some middle
ground?

Conclusions

Feminism was a movement of great importance which offered women equal chances
with men, a fact impossible until then.
The fight sustained by women was extremely hard but successful, and women
received the rights they wanted: access to politics, education and better child care.
I think that feminism was of great importance because women were underpaid at work
and undervalued at home.
Therefore, I think men should take up the feminist challenge and engage in a critical
dialogue with the movement itself, recognizing the seriousness and the complexity of
the issues which are being raised and responding as men to the new knowledge which
women have created.
Nevertheless there were also restrictions regarding women in literature. They were not
allowed to publish any work which was aimed directly towards men but they still
managed to write important works like:The feminine mystique , The second sex
which were a revelation of that era and contained the feminist ideology.
In my opinion Jane Austen was one of the most important forerunners of feminism and
the feminist tendencies in her work are obvious.
Also Agatha Christie is a modern feminist who always tried to hide that she was a
feminist but she spoke through her characters exposing her view on the movement.
From my point of view, nowadays many people recognize that feminism represents a
great step towards equality and sanity in human relationships.

Bibliography

www.scribd.ro
www.buzzle.com
www.pemberley.com
www.gale.cengage.com
www.feminist.org
www.readreactreview.com
Bouchier, David, The Feminist Challenge
Knepper, Marty S, Agatha Christie-Feminist in
Detective, Vol. 16, No. 4, Winter, 1983

Annexes