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res it with the Rivers, who she discovers are her family.  She then finds Mr. Rochester, who is poor and physically blind and they two get married at last.

Shirley is a wealthy lady. Though she has no parents, she owns a farm and lives an affluent life. She is grand, well dressed and independent. She rejects the ambitious, stubborn, modernizing mill-owner Robert GéRard Moore who attempts to ally himself through marriage with wealthy Shirley. She sympathizes with the desperate, unemployed workers in the age of laborsaving machinery. She makes friend with Caroline Helstone who is a conventional personality. At last, she expresses her love towards Louis Moore who “is a quiet man, has a large world of his own in his own head and heart”.

This paper compares the two ladies in these aspects as follows: social background, attitudes towards love, friends, common people and life etc.

Ⅲ、Completely Different Social Background

（一） Their Difference in Social Class

They are different in social class: one is a poor governess; the other is a wealthy female farm owner. Whoever reads Jane Eyre must have indelible impression on Jane’s unhappy childhood. She is born into a low class family, and then becomes an orphan raised by her cruel, wealthy aunt, Mrs. Reed. Jane hasn’t got love from parents, but bad treatment from her aunt and cousins. Her bullying cousin John Reed who teases and beats Jane constantly, says that,

“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant, mamma

says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us…”

Jane doesn’t want to be a dependant, let alone live a begging life. So she fights with John. But she is imprisoned in the red-room in which her uncle died as the punishment. It is easy to find out “the unfortunate childhood brings about the sprout of the rebellious spirit of Jane Eyre.”While in Shirley, the author does not mention anything about Shirley’s childhood. Readers just know her parents want her to grow up as a boy and leave her a great deal of wealth and she lives with a governess.

Unlike Shirley, Jane Eyre always has a kind of revolt and fight for equality. She says to Helen when Miss Scatcherd flogs Helen,

“if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her; if she struck

me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.”

Jane keeps on struggling. By contrast, Shirley needs no revolt. No one oppress her for her wealth. And it seems that “Shirley’s wealth liberates her from convention.”

 （二）Prejudices in Social Class

Furthermore, “Jane Eyre is always regarded as a criticism of Victorian England’ strict social hierarchy.”(Brian Phillips, 2003, 39) The guests of Rochester look down upon her for she is just a governess.

“Though Jane’s manners, sophistication, and education are those of an aristocrat, because Victorian governesses, who tutored children in etiquette as well as academics, were expected to possess the ‘culture’ of the aristocracy. Yet, as paid employees, they were more of less treated as servants,”

By contrast, Shirley is admired by the gentlemen and poor people for her kindness and of course her wealth. She can communicate with others freely, including those old gentlemen. Charlotte Brontё wrote the two ladies with different stations, but she s本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。