Jane Austen's Art Of Characterization

Does the rich class of women face different gender related issues than the poor class ? This paper will try to investigate whether there is any weight in the argument that distinctive classes hold different issues for women or are they all united in being subordinated by men .We will take into account two novels ,Pride and Prejudice and Emma,by the beloved 19th century writer Jane Austen. The female author’s works become the suitable object of inquiry owing to the strong voices, presence and interaction between plethora of women characters belonging to different stations. Even though, several critics have rightfully highlighted the absence of any reference or portrayal of the poor class in Austen’s novels, it is quite interesting to note that the author still highlights the apprehensions and relations within the seemingly close middle class and gentry.

Emma Woodhouse’s character as the representation of the independent woman in Jane Austen’s Emma, 2017

The purpose of the BA Thesis is to examine to what extent Emma Woodhouse’s character can be considered as an independent woman in Jane Austen’s novel. With the help of historical analyses on women’s lives in the Regency era it is supported that Emma had a distinctive and uncommon status compared to most women in her time. Moreover, several scholarly studies about Emma’s character are evaluated to give a broader account on her personality and traits. These studies prove that Emma’s inner characteristics, too, contributed to her independent behaviour shown in the novel. It is important to understand that Emma Woodhouse is a complex character who is unique among Jane Austen’s heroines. While she is rich, beautiful, and intelligent she is too inexperienced to use her power well which leads to several serious issues. For this reason, the BA Thesis concludes that Emma Woodhouse’s case can stand as an example for women who face a changing England at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The BA Thesis wishes to draw attention to the importance of women’s status in society before the dawn of the new century. This historical period deserves thorough inspection from which the most notable sources are given to us by women writers like Austen.

Emma is a novel written by Jane Austen, which is based on real-life situations of the eighteenth century England. Austen depicts her novels to show clearly the customs and traditions that people had to use in order to get married; her dissatisfaction towards all these conditions; male dominance and also the consideration of women as weak human beings with limited rights. Based on all these issues, Austen chooses different kinds of marriages, mainly based on economical interest. Most of the people in her novels see the marriage as an obligation which had to be fulfilled; most of the girls got involved into a marriage market where parents decided what was good or bad for them. This paper describes the conditions of unmarried and married women Emma; the ways how the unmarried women chose the partners; the ways how Austen compared the conditions of women with the real life situations of the eighteenth century Britain; how she used irony to show her dissatisfaction towards the traditions of that time, and also the real message she conveys to the world.

When addressing to Jane Austen’s literature as a feminist heritage, it comes to be quite controversial regarding the actual sense of the word feminist. In the eighteenth century it did not mean the same as it means today in the twenty-first century. Despite the obvious clues that Jane Austen has left to the reader in her works and through her characters, to think about them as a kind of heroines, they are far from the fact of being considered feminists as we would understand the term nowadays. Nevertheless, there are some striking things going on in all of her novels that must be reconsidered: women with more modern and progressive perspectives of English society that seem to be taking new directions and new social roles in the new century. The dependence on the father, brother or husband is not that obligatory anymore.

Through a close reading of Jane Austen’s last four completed novels, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion, the importance of character studies in literary criticism is highlighted. It is claimed that Austen’s heroines all epitomise a central concern with the possibility of personal freedom and growth in a restrictive society and a central observance of strive for truthfulness in human interaction. Going behind the romantic outer layer of each novel, this thesis analyses the narrative ploys applied to demonstrate the main characters’ need to fight for personal fulfilment as uncorrupted self-realisation. This reading underlines the author’s use of irony both on a textual, inter-textual and meta-level that explains the on-going research interest in her oeuvre. Unlike the majority of modern Austen studies, this thesis argues for the centrality of a character studies approach that focuses on the agency of Austen’s main characters. Regarding character studies as a valuable synergetic force in Austen studies, the heroines are seen as central to the novels’ message and narratology; style and composition are analysed as part of character studies rather than the other way around. In this context, some of Austen’s influential narratological devices such as free indirect speech, impressionistic dramatic effect, and ellipsis are analysed and a need for a new awareness of character in literary theory is underlined. The role of the narrator in connection to the author and reader and Austen’s manipulation with both in-text characters and reader through her narrator show how the act of reading in general, and specifically the act of reading character within the novels, are closely linked. Studying Austen’s mature work underlines the benefits of reading as authorial readers. This thesis claims that Austen’s deep concern with morally sound value systems and her main characters’ integrity stems from a number of philosophical and religious influences that can be described as a neo-Aristotelian outlook.

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect, 2023

2019

Jane Austen portrays her novel heroines as outliers in the patriarchal society of Regency Britain. For example, in "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), Elizabeth Bennet chose to marry for love and not merely in pursuit of economic security, which is a flagrant violation of the standards expected of women. Due to strict inheritance laws, women are not able to inherit their family’s properties and so, must turn towards marriage for dependency (or as some critics argue, independency) and capital guarantee in their future. Families often see this as an opportunity to quickly accumulate wealth and push their daughters to marry a man of fine wealth, shaping the “universally acknowledged truth” that marriage is a critical step for women to survive and succeed unbeknownst of their inner desires for marriage shaped by true love and passion. Anyone who deviates from this norm is considered a radical and the voices of these activists are suppressed by the government. Jane Austen was one of the few critics who openly disagrees with the patriarchal expectation of an ideal woman who is to serve the man. She acquires the views of Mary Wollstonecraft’s version of an accomplished woman – one who is seen to be of a rational equal of men and able to make her own independent decisions. In this annotated bibliography, I will explore the arguments of six different critics of Jane Austen’s works, illustrating the main principles that they believe Austen was trying to push through the portrayal and personality of her characters. Some arguments will overlap and I will point out the similar and contrasting understandings between critics to develop a more comprehensive picture of Jane Austen’s liberal feminist ideas of marriage in the novels’ social environments and the thorough examination of the heroines will show that they represent rather unconventional views of marriage.

Lingua Cultura

The researchers conducted research on Jane Austen literary works since she was a prominent female novelist with mostly discussed novels. The aim of this research was investigating how Jane Austen portrayed [woman] in the18th century through literary works. Six major novels were used as data. Hence qualitative method was employed. The novels were converted using AntConc. Then, the researchers identified the 50 highest collocations of [woman] based on three main categories in part of speech namely adjective, noun, and verb. The results reveal that Jane Austen portrays [woman] in the 18th century with positive and negative aspects; internal and external qualities that reflected through adjectives. Jane Austen often uses concrete and abstract nouns related to domestic property collocated with the word [woman]. Furthermore, the verbs that collocate with [woman] in Jane Austen’s literary works are productive verbs. The researchers find that the adjectives, nouns, and verbs that attach to ...

This study aims to explore feminist viewpoints in Jane Austen's works in general. As a famous 19 th Century novelist, Jane Austen tried to show the realities of women in her time. The common theme in all Austen's works includes the marriages of young women and the general social class structure of England in the 19 th Century. Jane Austen was a published female novelist who wrote under her own name which can be seen as an important feminist quality. She gifted six novels to readers about women centred in the thoughts, desires and behaviours of them. Besides, new innovations in the 19 th Century literature have also been mentioned in this study. ONDOKUZUNCU YÜZYIL EDEBİYATI VE JANE AUSTEN'IN ROMANLARINDAKİ FEMİNİST MOTİFLER ÖZET Bu çalışma, genel anlamda Jane Austen'in eserlerindeki feminist bakış açısını ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Ondokuzuncu yüzyılın ünlü romancısı Jane Austen kendi çağının kadınlarının gerçeklerini göstermeye çalışmıştır. Austen'in bütün eserlerindeki ortak tema ondokuzuncu yüzyıl İngilteresi'nin genel sosyal sınıf yapısı ve genç kadınların evlilikleri ile ilgilidir. Jane Austen kendi adı altında yazmış olan kadın romancıdır ve bu özelliği ile önemli bir feminist özellik ortaya koyar. Yazar, okuyuculara kadınların düşüncelerini, taleplerini ve davranışlarını anlatan altı roman bırakmıştır. Bu çalışmada ayrıca ondokuzuncu yüzyıl edebiyat dünyasında meydana gelen yeniliklerden de bahsedilmiştir.

The aim of this study is to trace the origin of the concept of "gentility" and its development over the course of time. The meaning of the word has shifted slightly since its original use in the classification system. During the Industrial Revolution, the meaning of the word "gentleman" expanded to include the merchants, clergy, army officers, and parliamentary members. The mercantile elites were referred as gentlemen due to the wealth and influence that they had amassed. The text selected for analysis is Jane Austen's Emma (1816), which highlights the themes of social classes. The novel presents characters that belong to different classes, and sheds light on ideas such as the superiority of the upper-class over the middle and low-class people, and the attempts that people make to climb to higher classes in the society.

British Journal of Multidisciplinary and Advanced Studies, 2023

This research paper examines the intricate interplay of gender and power in Jane Austen's novels. By analyzing the portrayal of characters and their interactions, the paper delves into the nuanced depiction of gender roles and power dynamics in Austen's works. The study explores the constraints imposed on women and the expectations of masculinity within the social contexts of Austen's novels. Additionally, it investigates the influence of social hierarchy, economic power, and patriarchal structures on characters' actions and relationships. Through a comparative analysis of specific novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, common patterns and variations in gender and power dynamics emerge. The findings highlight Austen's keen observation of societal norms and the ways in which they shape individuals' agency and relationships. By elucidating the multifaceted nature of gender and power in Austen's works, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of her enduring literary legacy.

Humanitatis : Journal of Language and Literature

This research discusses the social status of society at Highbury in the era of the 19th century. In this research the writer using the qualitative method to analyze social status that reflected in Jane Austen’s Emma and apply the theory of Swingewood (1972), that is the sociology of literature or the sociological approach. The result of this research that obtained the social status is still upheld by the community as a culture that they must preserve. When choosing a life partner, it is often determined by the background of both parties. If both parties do not have a match in their background then their wedding will not be permanent and happy. Because a person's social status is made the key as a part of a relationship, both in love and marriage. Marriage and love relationships are motivated by social class and work. Meanwhile, based on this culture it leads to the opinion that the upper class is not worthy of having a love relationship with the lower class. Keywords: social sta...

European Romantic Review, 2017

This article examines the novel's interest in powerless female characters and claims that through women's lack the public experiences a communal loss. Emma famously attempts to repair the lack of socially dispossessed women. Engaging in a fantasy of making up for lack by marrying her friends off to wealthy men, Emma appears to embrace the reactionary side of fantasy, which attempts to escape the trauma of loss by emphasizing wholeness and full satisfaction. However, as psychoanalytic theory makes clear, fantasy has another function: it inadvertently brings the subject closer to the trauma of loss. While much of the novel's action is focused on repairing women's lack particularly by emphasizing the marriage plot, fantasy in the novel also leads to the insistent public encounter with loss, culminating in the Box Hill episode. The novel insists on an enjoyment in lack itself. Furthermore, for most critics, the marriage at the novel's end between Knightley and Emma seems to function as a reactionary kind of fantasy resolution. This article, however, by focusing on the psychoanalytic concepts of fantasy and drive, emphasizes how the protagonists' union is motivated by a desire for the experience of loss and the acknowledgment of social authority's groundlessness. Narrative pleasure and the marriage plot Emma, as many critics have noted, is unique among Jane Austen's novels because its heroine, rich and independent, seems to "have it all." Yet, this novel insistently draws our attention to loss and repeatedly stages encounters with traumatic experience. By taking us through the fantasy of "having it all," the novel leads us to a lack centered on women, a lack denied by the fictional community of Highbury. The novel begins by creating a fantasy of wholeness and, where there is lack, by offering a narrative trajectory to successfully eliminate it. From the first pages of the novel, the narrator claims that Emma seems to be fully satisfied: Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twentyone years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. (1) Her position is so ideal that she claims she would "be a fool to change such a situation as mine" (55). Emma's condition seems to eschew desire and therefore any narrative