ISOLATION AND SURVIVAL: ROBINSON CRUSOE AND BEOWULF
Keywords:
Individual conscience; social expectations; moral autonomy; female agency; marriage and society; class structure; gender roles; moral realism; Pride and Prejudice; Middlemarch; Regency society; Victorian society; ethical responsibility; social constraint; comparative literature.Abstract
This article examines the tension between individual moral conscience and social expectations in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) and George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871). Focusing on the protagonists Elizabeth Bennet and Dorothea Brooke, the study explores how female moral agency operates within the social, economic, and cultural constraints of nineteenth-century English society. Through comparative literary analysis, the paper investigates the ways in which marriage, class hierarchy, gender roles, and institutional norms shape personal ethical choices. While Austen presents a model in which individual conscience ultimately harmonizes with society through mutual moral growth, Eliot depicts a more complex and fragmented negotiation between personal ideals and social realities. The comparison highlights the evolution of the English realist novel from Regency irony to Victorian moral realism and demonstrates how both authors portray conscience as a dynamic process formed through self-reflection, social interaction, and ethical responsibility.
