Grannarne och Jane Eyre. En komparativ studie.

Sammanfattning: The Swedish author Fredrika Bremer's novel Grannarne was published in 1837, and the English translation The Neighbours was published in London in 1842. This novel as well as other novels by Bremer which were published in English in the 1840s, were widely read and they were very popular with readers as well as with literary critics. As has been noted formerly, there are certain striking likenesses between The Neighbours and Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, published in 1847. In this essay, a comparative study is made of motifs found in both novels, such as "The Byronic Hero", and "The Strange Woman" as well as structures such as "the acceptance of guilt", followed by "judgement" and the possibility of "mercy", which are also found in both novels. In the last chapter, there is a discussion of the characters' perception of their respective worlds as primarily conditioned by religion, and how this is manifested in the previous chapters of the essay. A connection between Bertha in Jane Eyre and Hagar in The Neighbours is explored and a suggestion is made of a possible connection between Hagar and the ancient poet Sappho.