Beyond “Wicked”: The Subversive Agency of Female Protagonists in the 19th Century Literature
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Abstract
This paper is associated with two highly notable 19th-century works: Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. This study employs a qualitative approach, following an explanatory research design, with a primary focus on gaining insight into the representation of women in European literature to define a research problem that has not been previously explored in the same manner. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the representation of female lead characters in the contemporary era and whether this representation tends to uplift women amid social rigors or marginalize them. The paper also offers a close reading of the two novels to indicate notions of comparison, both similarity and dissimilarity,noted by the authors from two different socio-political perspectives. Furthermore, this paper also discusses female sexuality regarding motherhood and extramarital affairs, considering the severity of taboo in such matters. Moreover, finally, this paper seeks to attach new meaning to the values presented in both novels, redefining them to analyze the works of literature through various literary theories.
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References
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