Double Translation and Subversion of Social Constraints

A new Brontë-related paper:

The Subversion of Social Constraints to Female Education in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Buchi Emecheta's Second-Class Citizen

Afuh Didachos Mbeng, Department of Official Languages and Translation, University of Ebolowa

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, RSIS International, vol. 10(3), pages 8159-8167, March 2026

This article discusses female education and punishment in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Buchi Emecheta's Second-Class Citizen, and considers the novelists as writers who do not only advocate for the education and empowerment of the woman, particularly the girl child but also shed light on the societal punishments and limitations imposed on them. In other words, the article shows that both authors emphasize the significance of education in empowering girls and promoting personal growth while critiquing societal restrictions and punishments that girls who desire education face. To both novelists, limited access to education for the girl child, patriarchal oppression and social stigma which characterize(d) Victorian and the post independent African societies serve as containments that attempt to suppress potentially subversive feminist narratives. Using new historicist approach, and drawing from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punishent, and his observations on the nature and purpose of punishment to show both novelists' destabilization of class and gender hierarchies, the work offers insights into the contentious relationship between British fin de siècle and postcolonial African societies on the one hand, and the education of the girl child on the other hand, thereby questioning the authenticity and representation of society as a disciplinary unit, leading to the conclusion that Brontë and Emeheta harbor a social and cultural agenda with focus on female education. 

And this chapter:

Doppeltes Übersetzen. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffers Theaterstück ›Die Waise aus Lowood‹ (1853) und Charlotte Brontës Roman ›Jane Eyre‹ (1847) (Double Translation. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer's Play 'The Orphan of Lowood' (1853) and Charlotte Brontë's Novel 'Jane Eyre' (1847))

by Dr. Felix Lempp (Institute for Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Bern)

from this recently published book:

Broterwerb, Alltagsgeschäft, künstlerische Praxis: Studien zu Übersetzerinnen aus der Sammlung Varnhagen (Breadwinning, Daily Business, Artistic Practice: Studies on Women Translators from the Varnhagen Collection)

Edited by Jadwiga Kita-Huber and Frederike Middelhoff

Brill Verlag

ISBN 978-3-7705-7089-8

September 2026
 

Der Band widmet sich bislang unerschlossenen oder kaum erforschten Übersetzungen von Frauen, die mit einem der größten Handschriftenarchive Europas – der in Krakau (Jagiellonen-Bibliothek) aufbewahrten Sammlung Varnhagen – in Verbindung stehen. Für Akteurinnen wie Rosa Maria Assing, Sarah Austin, Helmina von Chézy, Caroline de Crespigny, Ottilie von Goethe oder Henriette Schubart bedeutete das Übersetzen nicht allein eine finanzielle Einnahmequelle. Vielmehr war es im Spannungsfeld von künstlerischem Selbstausdruck, dem Verlangen zur Mitgestaltung ästhetischer Geschmacksbildung und alltäglichen Formen schriftlicher, oftmals mehrsprachiger Kommunikation verortet. Die Beiträge nehmen die Schriften der Übersetzerinnen und ihre aus der Sammlung Varnhagen ersichtliche Vernetzung zum Anlass, die vielfältigen Praktiken des Übersetzens zu differenzieren und sowohl die ästhetischen Strategien als auch die kulturpolitischen Maximen der Übersetzerinnen zu ermitteln.