This study presents a comparative feminist analysis of the representation of femininity in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (1839) and its 2002 film adaptation directed by Douglas McGrath. The research is grounded in Luce Irigaray’s feminist psychoanalytic theory, particularly her concepts of female subjectivity, mimicry, secularization, and the critique of phallocentric discourse. Adopting a qualitative and interpretive research design, the study employs close textual analysis of the novel alongside cinematic analysis of the film adaptation to examine narrative strategies, visual representation, and character construction. The analysis focuses on key female characters, including Kate Nickleby, Madeline Bray, and Mrs. Nickleby, in order to explore how femininity is constructed, constrained, or reimagined across literary and cinematic forms. The findings reveal that Dickens’s novel largely reinforces Victorian patriarchal ideology by depicting women as passive, moral, and dependent figures whose value is defined in relation to male authority. In contrast, McGrath’s film adaptation introduces greater emotional visibility and limited agency for female characters through visual framing, performance, and selective dialogue, reflecting contemporary feminist sensibilities. While the film does not entirely escape the patriarchal framework of the original text, it reconfigures the representation of femininity by allowing women a more pronounced presence and partial subjectivity. The study concludes that cinematic adaptation functions as a site of ideological negotiation, where traditional gender norms are both preserved and challenged through modern reinterpretation.
