The novels of `Rebecca' by Daphne Du Maurier and `Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Brontë are very alike in their gothic themes. Both authors had been raised in a society where people believed that women should keep to their traditional roles and both authors wanted to break this tradition so that women could have more importance in society. Both novels contain the lower class heroine who is intrigued by the upper class older man; however things are made difficult for these characters as another woman gets in the way.

Society in Victorian time was extremely patriarchal, women had no rights. However, Charlotte Brontë broke this mould and created a character who was a strong and independent young woman. Jane Eyre has had to fend for herself her whole life without a family to help her. The only role she could take on respectably was that of a governess. Jane...