Blinded by Angels, Monsters, Mad Women, or Mothers : The Struggling Break from Patriarchy in Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice

Sammanfattning: This study attempts to shed light on the psychological mindsets of two minor femalecharacters in two fictional stories, Lady Capulet, the mother in Romeo and Juliet (1597), and Mrs Bennet, the mother in Pride and Prejudice (1813). The stories are set centuries apart by two different English authors. Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare and was published in 1597, whilst Pride and Prejudice was written by Jane Austen and was published in 1813. This essay will examine why the authors show the mothers with characteristic attitudes and habitual behaviours that inherently portray them as women affected by patriarchy. Lady Capulet is revealed as a mother who supports her husband in the arrangement of her daughter’s marriage, but as a mother who punishes her daughter for refusing to marry a man arranged by the father. Mrs Bennet is portrayed as a mother driven by materialistic gains, whose ultimate obsession is to find men to marry her daughters, a mother who also punishes her daughter for refusing to marry a man picked out by her. The authors are well renowned, and both tales are amongst the greatest romantic love stories of all times. Nevertheless, these stories do not support the feminist cause for equality of the sexes but instead create a reality of a society that was essentially patriarchal. Psychoanalytical feminist literary criticism reveals that the authors were deeply influenced by a patriarchal culture, which they have reflected and created in the mother characterisations of their stories.