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Dickens And Eliot: A Tale Of Two Feminists, Matthew Thompson

The Corinthian

It has been (and will continue to be) argued that authors always portray characters of their own sex in a more complete way. It is because of this, and well-known facts about the time period during which he wrote, that Charles Dickens is rarely considered a feminist writer. George Eliot, who wrote in nearly the same time period, is often lauded as an exemplary feminist writer. But through his characterization of Miss Havisham and Estella in Great Expectations, Dickens shows himself to be more than equal to Eliot in that field of writing. Her own Maggie Tulliver in The Mill …