Abstract
ABSTRACT: To address the era's "condition of women" question, Charlotte Brontë's Shirley employs Caroline Helstone's storyline through two frameworks: community and anti-community. Woman's community consists of those who identify and nurture her needs and ambitions as an individual within the broader social network; an anti-community discourages female individualism, instead emphasizing restraint and conformity. This perspective offers a useful framework through which to consider the condition-of-women-question, its relation to the angel in the house, and its depiction in Shirley . In addition, it serves to defend the novel against two prominent critical complaints: that Shirley lacks thematic or structural unity, and that its conformist ending contradicts its feminist premise.
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