A Journey Of A Thousand Miles

By comparing and contrasting three texts from the Gothic canon; Radcliffe's A Romance of the Forest Austen's Northanger Abbey and finally Bronte's Jane Eyre A Journey of a Thousand Miles maps women's progress towards self-authorship self-ownership and self-actualisation; through both their own adventures as female writers within a male dominated tradition and the journeys undertaken by their fictional female counterparts. Paying close attention to the boundaries laid out for these women; authors and heroines alike we see them beginning to forge paths of their own; gaining awareness education and the understanding necessary to define the limits of their own sex.