Stereotypical images of women in Dickens’ Great Expectations and Wood’s East Lynne

Abstract: The purpose of this essay was to analyze the stereotypical images of women in Great Expectation by Charles Dickens and East Lynne by Ellen Wood, using feminist literary criticism as a theoretical perspective. The stereotypical images that were found were Cynthia Griffin Wolff’s sentimental stereotype, virtuous woman, the sensuous woman, and liberated woman; and Ferguson’s woman alone, submissive wife and the bitch. The virtuous woman, the submissive wife and the sentimental stereotype can all be seen as representations of the Victorian ideal, while the other stereotypes can be seen as representations of a woman who exists outside of the norm. It was found that while representations of the ideal women in Great Expectations achieved happiness, this was not the case in East Lynne. Furthermore, the women who did represent the ideal met tragic fates in Great Expectations; this was not always the case in East Lynne.