The Women Of Jane Austen :: Jane Austen Females Essays

The Women of Jane AustenJane Austen has attracted a great deal of critical attention in recent years. legion(predicate) accommodate spoken out about the strengths and weaknesses of her characters, particularly her heroines. Austen has been cast as both a friend and foe to the rights of women. According to Morrison, most womens liberationist studies have represented Austen as a conscious or unconscious incendiary voicing a charrs frustration at the rigid and sexist mixer order which enforces subservience and dependence (337). Others feel that her marriage plots are representative of her homage to the social quid pro quo of her time Marriage, almost inevitably the annals event that constitutes a happy ending, represents in their view a introduction to a masculine narrative imperative that has traditionally allotted women have sex and men the world (Newman 693). In reality, Austen cannot accurately be evaluated as an author (or feminist subversive) without first examining the e ighteenth century English society in which she lived and dictated her heroines. Watt says that Austens characters cannot be seen clearly until we make allowances for the social order in which they were rooted (41). Austen lived in a society where women were expected to be accomplished, as Darcy states in felicitate and Prejudice, but not well educated (Notes). Women of the late eighteenth-century could not fancy educational institutions like Oxford or Cambridge. It was not considered necessary for a adult female to have knowledge of either Greek or Latin. If a woman received training, it was usually religious or domestically practical. The expected accomplishments of a woman at the time included the ability to draw, singing, speaking new languages (such as Italian or French), and playing a musical instrument, usually the piano. These accomplishments were required to attract the right (rich) kind of husband. A womans financial stance was very important, and yet there was littl e she could do to improve it. Women of near social standing could not just go out and capture a job. The only opportunities for support outside ones family was work as a governess, or live-in teacher. Money for a woman usually only came with marriage or the death of her father, and then only if she had no brothers or other male relatives.Marriage, then, was looked upon by both men and women as a necessity for security, regardless of a lack of attraction or love. long-range financial stability had to be procured at an early age.