“There Is a Change Coming […] in the Lives of Girls and Women.” Del Jordan’s and Catherine Sloper’s Ways to Independence

Abstract

This chapter offers a comparative analysis of two film adaptations: Agnieszka Holland’s Washington Square (Dir. Agnieszka Holland. Hollywood Pictures, The US, 1997) and Ronald Wilson’s Lives of Girls and Women (1994a, b) in terms of the development of their female protagonists, Catherine Sloper and Del Jordan, respectively, from weak and innocent girls to independent women. Paula Suchorska begins by discussing the ways in which Henry James and Alice Munro depict female protagonists in their works. She then focuses on the presentation of the main characters, their relations with other women and the role of men in their lives in the two film adaptations. She discusses the factors that have a significant impact on Del’s and Catherine’s ways to independence, arguing that each of them reaches a different stage of freedom.