Essays on Jane Austen

The realistic novel, characterized by its presentation of reality and rational philosophy, was a genre created in response to the romantic, or “gothic,” novel and which was characterized by sensationalist escapism. In contrast to romanticism’s poetic and dreamlike language, the diction of the realistic novel...

In the Victorian era, appropriate etiquette and manners were predetermined for both men and women. The society in which they lived maintained stereotypical gender roles more rigidly defined than at the present. The coming of age was difficult for any young person; therefore, the ability...

The novels of Jane Austen primarily reveal satirical glimpses into the inner workings of Nineteenth-century England’s upper classes. With a mocking overtone, the author ridicules the plight of young women as they desperately seek a worthy husband. Ultimately, the heroine happily weds the man whom...

“It is believed that every original idea has already been conceived hundreds of times over. The challenge of creativity is to transform a familiar concept into something that is unique to one’s personal understanding. Pop-culture is full of claimed ideas, transformed into something entirely new....

The comparative study of texts and contexts demonstrates that composers write to reflect prevalent values and issues within their own society. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice exhibit connections in terms of the contrasting attitudes towards marriage and the divergent...

The gothic phenomena, although short-lived, left an indisputably heavy influence on literary practices in the late 1700’s, particularly that of the ‘feminist’ literary space. Jane Austen’s questionable heroine, Catherine Morland, is both the construction and deconstruction of female figures that populated the novels of her...

One’s life is shaped and modified as we grow through the relationships one makes, however little, even daily encounters can drastically change the course of life as a whole. In the blink of an eye, something happens, or rather someone happens to arrive by chance...

Placing Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion and William Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra side by side, one observes an interesting parallelism in the manner in which the protagonists are portrayed. Though the views and opinions of Austen’s Anne Elliot and Shakespeare’s Antony are expressed directly and...

Jane Austen is commonly viewed as anti-romantic, but her novel Northanger Abbey possesses and promotes many of the ideas prevalent in romantic literature. Heroine Catherine Morland is an especially romantic character whose spontaneity, emotion, and sincerity eventually lead her to happiness. These traits, combined with...

For hundreds of years, women were among the many in the world that held little to no rights. Subordinate to their husbands, they were legally not allowed to own property, or even voice their opinions in the community. Clearly, this needed to change. In Northanger...

If ever Jane Austen set out to depict the moralistic chasm between Regency society and pre-Victorian propriety, she did so with Mansfield Park. To accomplish this, her characters are divided among these diverging ideologies. The majority succumb to their unscrupulous fancies while the few but...

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice continues to be a well-loved classic in any readers’ bookcase. The anxieties of marriage, distinctions in social status, significances of reputation, unreasonable expectations of women and inconveniences of too much pride and prejudice are some of the themes presented in...

The eighteenth-century novel seemed often to be the place in which people would attempt reform society. The novel gave writers a medium through which they could provide both entertainment and a place in which they could attempt to reform people’s views. Although often times these...

Long has the concept of female friendship confounded researchers, philosophers, scientists, and novelists alike. Friendships among women often confuse, and even intimidate, cultures built on hierarchies of power that center around men’s logical prowess. This cautious uncertainty extends to the writings of Jane Austen, whose...

Jane Austen uses her novels to express her disdain for nineteenth century English marital practice. She herself defied convention by remaining single and earning a living through her writing. Austen’s novels, including Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion, frequently feature an aristocratic heroine who is...

Being Taken In How much of a role does deception play in courtship? In marriage? In Volume I of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Henry and Mary Crawford engage in a conversation with their sister, Mrs. Grant, concerning this very question. The conversation occurs soon after...

Jane Austen’s famous novel, Pride and Prejudice depicts the marvelous and unusual relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Charles Darcy, following them through an understanding of love, challenges of the prejudices of their time and the never ending pride of both characters. The novel opens up...

Irony as a literary device has been used in order to achieve a sense of reality within works of fiction. It can be seen a sort of contrast between the surface meaning of something that is said or done and the actual, underlying meaning of...

“[A] persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.” (Persuasion, Ch. 12) Persuasion seems to draw on the deep divide in the two then contemporary forms of the novel – one based on Augustan values, in which...