Jane Austen and Feminism

"'Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story,' wrote Jane Austen. 'Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.' Now women seized the pen; and female self-consciousness brought heroinism to literature. As literary women have always been grateful to say, it all went back to the first heroine of letters, Richardson's Pamela, not because of her virtue but because, as she says herself, 'I have got such a knack of writing, that when I am by myself, I cannot sit without a pen in my hands'

The question at hand is whether Austen was a feminist. It was thought that Austen was a romance writer who taught tradition/virtue in her prose. This was not the case.

While it may be true that Austen was a romance writer, it was not the way critics had once believed. Instead of exalting the value of tradition and virtue in her prose, Austen defied it and made a case for feminine rights. Whether we see Austen as a feminist because we are looking for evidence in her text or because she truly was a feminist is something that we may never be able to discern.

Austen was not outright in her feminism and if you weren't looking for it, you might not have noticed the stances she took. She was well known for writing about young women who only had interest in marriage, and she was often underestimated because of this . Though if you analyze her work you will find her subtle feminist tendencies.

Complex Heroines-Elizabeth, Catherine and Elinor

While most of Austen's characters did want to marry, they always wanted to choose their own suitors and marry for love which is something that was unheard of during Austen's lifetime.

Elizabeth Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, "who will be dependant on her family and at the mercy of Mr. Collins who holds the entail to the family house if she never marries, only wants to marry if she can find 'the deepest love'" (Ashford 1). Elizabeth was a very intelligent character, but it was not only the smart females that held this sort of strong feminine notion about marrying for love.

The character, Catherine, from Northanger Abbey was not very dim, but she also had great character judgement in disliking John Thorpe.

There can even be a case for Austen believing that women should hold jobs like men, Elinor from Sense and Sensibility envies men with careers (Ashford 1).

Marriage and Patriarchy

Society was very patriarchal during these times, men were in control of all monitary assets. When a man died, his money was actually passed on to the closest living male heir and the women were left penniless. While men and women were allowed to chose thier own partners, money/wealth/status were very important and often marriages were made on those grounds alone

Not Technically Feminism, But Close

You can't actually call Austen a feminist because her protest was very subtle and only found by the discerning eye, but she did help pave the way for modern day feminists. She had views on women and marriage and women's rights in general and she made that known in her writing. Her message was read by millions of women all over England and is read by millions more today, without pioneers like Austen, women may have been left in the dust--victims of a never ending patriarchal society.

Place in Austen's biography

1. Male writers have always been able to study their craft in university or coffeehouse, group themselves into movements or coteries, search out predecessors for guidance or patronage, collaborate or fight with their contemporaries. But women through most of the nineteenth century were barred from the universities, isolated in their own homes, chaperoned in travel, painfully restricted in friendship. The personal give-and-take of the literary life. was closed to them Without it, they studied with a special closeness the works written by their own sex, and developed a sense of easy, almost rude familiarity with the women who wrote them. . . . Take Jane Austen* on the one hand, and her contemporaries Wordsworth,* Coleridge,* and Southey on the other. Wordsworth went to Bristol to meet Coleridge; both were Cambridge men, and they had university friends in common. At Bristol, Wordsworth found Coleridge rooming with an Oxford undergraduate named Southey: they were planning to emigrate to America. Instead Wordworth and Coleridge drew close to together, settled near each other in the lake district, and collaborated on a volume which made history, called Lyrical Ballads . Meanwhile Jane Austen, almost exactly the same age and