VOCATION, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE IN NOVELS BY GEORGE ELIOT, CHARLOTTE BRONTË, AND ANNE BRONTË

Abstract

This dissertation intends to pose a question that links an important nineteenth-century theory of education with literary works: how John Ruskin’s educational theories offer new insights into exploring the intellectual growth of Victorian women as shown in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860), Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey (1847), and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), and Villette (1853). The study compares the novelists’ educational views with Ruskin’s theory and the ideologies that form its base to develop a counter-narrative to traditional feminist critiques of these texts. Drawing on Clare Carlisle’s analysis of vocation and marriage and Ruskin’s view on education, the study explores how the themes of vocation, education, and marriage intersect to shape each female protagonist’s journey toward a fulfilling intellectual life. While feminist critics such as Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Sally Shuttleworth have focused on gender constraints and patriarchal repression, this dissertation revisits the selected novels through the lens of vocation and education as intellectual and moral callings. Carlisle’s readings offer a more nuanced framework in which marriage and vocation are not only sites of conflict but also potential spaces for growth. Ruskin’s educational philosophy particularly in Sesame and Lilies and The Ethics of the Dust emphasizes a curriculum that develops both intellect and character, proposing an educational vision that, while gendered, urges moral and mental refinement for women. Through examining how the selected heroines capitalize on education to discover and pursue their vocations and redefine marriage as a site of mutual development, the study argues that these women novelists not only portray the limitations of their time but also envision education as a pathway toward intellectual agency. Thus, the dissertation highlights how Eliot, Anne Brontë, and Charlotte Brontë challenge traditional gender norms and participate in a broader philosophical discourse on women's intellectual lives during the Victorian period.