by Anna Krichbaum Geller, February 10th, 2011
Can you imagine a life of rural gentility? Quiet summer evenings, sipping tea on your terrace with your close and intimate friends. Making a subtle and yet intentional glance to the handsome nobleman playing croquet on the green, perfectly manicured lawn. Every detail so carefully cultivated every nuance, sigh, remark, made with care and in some cases deviously. This is how Jane Austen set the feel and tone of her novels, pulling us into a world of formal, country elegance. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Jane’s most popular novel Pride and Prejudice;
“Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticize. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.” (Austen, 1993)
In this excerpt Jane’s Hero is finally recognizing his original prejudice against the Heroine. See how she elegantly follows his thoughts and paints a picture of her Heroine from his perspective? This is an example of Austen’s literary genius.
Her novels may have been filled with melodrama and romance but Jane led a fairly ordinary and honestly boring life. Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England and died July 18, 1817 in Winchester, Hampshire, England. Ms. Austen was the daughter of a clergyman and one of seven children. (The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, 1998) She was never married and was a longtime companion to her sister Cassandra. This woman of country English nobility made her mark through her writing. She wrote 6 novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. She published them anonymously but is recognized now as one of the most influential female English novelists of the 19th century.
Jane Austen should be praised not only for contributing such brilliant literary works to the world. But she must be acknowledged for more! She set the tone for novels in the 19th century, mixing comedy and drama with the beauty of her easy voice and graceful prose. She lived through her romantic and comic tales when her life was anything but. She should be respected for a young woman writing her heart out to other women in a male dominated world. Finally, Jane Austen should be most praised for her devotion to her sister Cassandra which I feel was the truest and good of all her romantic tales.
Jane and Cassandra were engaged but the marriages never came to fruition. So she led a simple life with her sister and wrote about her aspirations for them through her novels; to become married to a rich man, and have many children, to find happiness in love. This never came to be. Maybe that is why she could describe ordinary life with such ability and ease of words. Because ordinary life had to be what consumed her hours of the day. She was praising that existence of the subtle, quiet lives of the country gentry.
She had great admirers who felt as much, such as Sir Walter Scott, the greatest novelist in her day. He said in 1826 in his Journal,
"That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful thing I ever met with. “ (The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, 1998)
He couldn’t have said it better. That is one area that I can find not one fault against her! She contributed much to the literary world and this is the dearest of her offerings.
But Jane Austen must be acknowledged for her offerings to the women’s movement as well! Austen was active as a feminist by writing novels during a time when she had to remain anonymous to avoid being snubbed by the 19th century upper classes because she was a woman. In fact she wasn’t even recognized for her work until several decades after her death in 1817. Furthermore, her female characters would only marry for love instead of financial security and social rank. By writing her main characters as strong women with spotlessly clean reputations she was standing firm in her faith to women kind as independent, having their own minds and hearts! She changed how novels were written since, even by male authors!
So many novels were modeled after Jane’s books. The author James Cooper’s wrote Precaution less than a decade after Jane’s Persuasion. (Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, 2000) These novels are known under the genre of “Novels of Manners” and goes on in popularity into the 20th century. (The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature, 1997) But not everyone agrees that Jane influences literature positively.
The critics would say that Jane Austen tainted Britain and created a romantic epidemic of novels by authors such as Bulwer, and Dickens, and Charlotte Bronte. Interestingly Charlotte Bronte who wrote the famous Jane Eyre was actually one of Austen’s worst critics! She said in a letter to a relative regarding Jane’s novel Emma,
“I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works "Emma" - read it with interest and with just the degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable - anything like warmth or enthusiasm; anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all demonstration the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outré and extravagant... she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood…” (Bronte, 1850)
A bit harsh to say Jane was anything by heartfelt. Look at her last and most mature book Persuasion; in this great work she aptly describes the pain the heroine feels longing for her lost beau. I could feel it, I having lost many beaus, as I turned each page and understood how my heroine pined and sorrowed in silence. I believe it is the most down-to-earth romance that Jane Austen ever wrote and the peak of beauty. I believe Miss. Bronte and Miss. Austen were two very different people, one reserved and one passionate, so it makes sense the headstrong Bronte would lash out at someone with some manners and sense.
In conclusion, Jane Austen should be celebrated for gifting the literary world with her great novels. She should be recognized for how she set the tone for how novels were written since and into the 20th century, with charming romances in simple settings and complex characters. She may have lived through her novels a romantic life even as hers was dull in comparison but she reveled in making a small living off her novels. Jane Austen a single, poor, pastor’s daughter undertook the role of a writer. In that she should be most praised for the world in which she lived she would have been shunned. Ms. Austen, I hope you and Cassandra are smiling secret smiles to each other in heaven, you deserve them.
Bibliography
Austen, J. (1993). Pride and Prejudice. Barnes Noble Classics.
Bronte, C. (1850, April 12). Letter from Charlotte Bronte to W.S. Williams. The Brontes: Their Friendships, Lives, and Correspondence, 3, 99. (T. Wise, Ed.) Oxford, England.
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century. (2000). LITERATURE. Retrieved February 8, 2011, from Credo Reference: http://mchoudini.montgomerycollege.edu:2211/entry/galeus/literature
The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature. (1997). Novel of manners. Retrieved February 8, 2011, from Credo Reference: http://www.credoreference.com/entry/blit/novel_of_manners
The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women. (1998). Austen, Jane (1775 - 1817). Retrieved February 8, 2011, from Credo Reference: http://mchoudini.montgomerycollege.edu:2211/entry/penbdw/austen_jane_1775_1817
