The Moral of the Story: Growing up in A Gossip’s Story, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre and Little Women

Abstract: In nineteenth-century literature, the heroine is often a young woman growing up and learning about the restrictions of gender and society. If she learns from the mistakes she is inevitably going to make, she may be rewarded … with a suitor? How does this correlate, who are the heroines and who are the suitors? This essay aims to answer these questions, along with evaluating parents in literature and assessing their relationships with their daughters to see if that has any effects on their marital outcomes. The novels discussed are A Gossip’s Story, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre and Little Women.