Charlotte of Montraville
This is related to the novel, Tess of the D’Ubervilles, by Thomas Hardy, which is a massive nineteenth-century British novel.
In the novel, the protagonist, Tess, is defeated by the power of the society, as she fights against the societal norms to give birth to her illegitimate baby, who was a result of rape. The man who raped her was Alec, a rich and educated man, who seduced Tess by persuading her to work for him as long as he promised to help her family cope with certain issues. This indicates an element of victimization, as the female protagonist is viewed to be helpless and incapable of taking matters into her hands, due to which she is left seduced and abandoned by any man that she trusts. Tess and Charlotte face similar issues, as a consequence of defying the female norms that society entailed for them.
Coincidentally enough, both Charlotte and Tess are bound by the terms and conditions that society imposes on them. From wrongly deciding to keep their illegitimate babies, to being with men they were not legally married to, forced upon them a lot of shame and humiliation from the harsh eyes of society. Both Charlotte and Tess experienced the same consequences from their surroundings, which led to their eventual deaths, though in different terms. Both the texts focus on the beauty of the women being the reason for them being seduced and eventually doomed, raising the issue of how society emphasizes on the beauty of women rather than their critical thinking of worldly situations.
Charlotte's situation can be matched with the movie, An Education (2009), in which the protagonist, Jenny, is seduced by a much older man named David. Jenny ends up losing her virginity to David, who then asks her to marry him, which leads her to drop out of school and not apply to her dream university. She accepts the proposal, only to later discover that David is a married man. From this, it can be derived that this 'doomedness' of women, as a consequence of seduction towards charming, seemingly trustworthy men, has the implication that women who lose control of their lives face the worst kind of doom. In contrast to Charlotte's ending, Jenny did not let her loss with David affect her negatively. Instead, she picked herself up and went into her dream university.
Both stories are lessons for young girls - Charlotte's story is to teach girls what not to do, and Jenny's story is to teach girls what is to be done even if the worst of events occurred in their lives. When it comes to society, then, both these women face the suffocation that society forces on them. Both Charlotte and Jenny went against societal norms and did just as they were told not to do. Both the men in their lives betrayed them; Charlotte, however, let that kill her because society moved from insulting her to pitying her. Whereas, Jenny did not let the betrayal kill her even though society sympathized with her and looked at her as the 'doomed' girl. Instead, David's betrayal empowered her in a way and taught her to take control of her life.
_thumb.jpg){kind=link}
