Her novels have been included into what was called 'Comedy of Manners' or 'Drawing-room comedies'. They deal not with religion or death or politics, they are about normal people's problems and the survival of the individual in a hostile society full of prejudices and very worried about appearances and class. Her characters are mainly high and middle class people.
She never married because, although having had many suitors, she did not love any of them. This is quite a revolutionary idea for a woman at the time. 'She was not a spinster, she was a free woman'. At that time educated single women could only dedicate themselves t teaching, writing or acting, professions which were not very well considered.
Jane Austen wrote some small pieces of fiction before writing her mature work. The most important are: 'Love and friendship', 'Evelyn', 'Catherine' and 'Lady Susan'.
There is a constant presence of apparent opposites in her titles. The key to happiness is putting together both extremes; this is one of the most important elements for the Romantic Movement.
Love and friendship is a parody of improbable romances that laughs at the very sentimental heroines of previous times. It is against sentimental excesses of any kind. Very Neo-classical in tone, it deals with propriety, social behaviour, etc. It was very controversial at the time because the idea in it was that friendship was the basis of love.
Evelyn is the description of a dream, a reverie. This is a very much used technique by the Romantics. The final message is that you cannot trust somebody who cannot cope with difficulties. Someone who is not capable of having self-control in extreme situations is not worth our trust.
Catherine is a heroine that realises how you cannot trust appearances. She discovers that neither she, nor the people around her are what she had thought them to be. It is a social critique.
Lady Susan has a very feminist tone. It deals mainly with a woman and her sad story when trying to learn, to cultivate herself and the hostile society she has to live in. This work reminds us of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Jane Austen was very much influenced by Samuel Johnson (the man of letters of the 18th C). He represents balance, culture, reason, order, tradition, and hierarchy, social values and love for the city. She was, at the same time, influenced by William Cowper, who was completely the opposite of Johnson. He represents feelings and freedom, spontaneity and experiences, individual values and struggles. He was a lover of the countryside.
The most important of the literary convictions that she inherited from him was the concept of life and literature. For Johnson, who was very optimistic, the fact that we cannot predict our lives does not mean that we cannot control them, and that we cannot put some kind of order into them up to a point. Truth is always found provided you are in possession of moral sincerity and a reliable judgement. If you have the right kind of morals and the right kind of judgement you shall be happy. Their intention was to teach people, to instruct them and through their teachings make them want to improve themselves.
This is the reason why 'fiction' dealt with portraits of real life. The closer the portrait was to reality the better and the quickest it would reach people. This could seem to us quite a naïve idea because reality is not one; there are as many realities as people there are. The instructive object of this kind of works implied that language should be transparent and that words should mean what they meant and nothing else. Language is not a main element; it is a transparent means of communication.
The influence that William Cowper exerted over Jane Austen can be seen on two different convictions. According to Cowper, knowledge should be gained from life, from the experience you acquire living. Experience is more important than academic education. This idea will be present in Jane Austen's work. The second aspect is that he believed that nature was the key to happiness. Nature inspired the individual with the right kind of feelings; it improves oneself through good sensations. Nature its God's projection. This is an Evangelical idea and it is very much related to a very important, because of its influence, movement called Benevolism, which was at its peak on the second half of the 18th Century. One of the 'heads' of it was J. Shaftesbury. Benevolism is a reaction towards Hobbes' most dramatic and pessimistic ideas of mankind. For them, human beings are gifted with a moral and aesthetic sense inferred on him by nature. For the Benevolists nature implies a complete harmony of varied and opposite values. The importance of this movement is great, because apart from changing the idea of what human beings were, they advocated for insane people, women's rights, the working classes, etc. All this, affected the Romantics to a great extent.
As far as characters are concerned, in Jane Austen we will always find the same kind of characters. Christopher Gillie made a taxonomy of her work. In it, there are five types of characters:
The heroines: they are different from previous periods' heroines who were very soapy, sentimental and did not seem to evolve psychologically. At this time heroines are normal women, not particularly attractive or pretty, but they show some evolution: the go from immaturity to maturity by means of critical self-discovery. They show two characteristics: endurance and generosity in contrast with previous heroines. Romantic heroines are not interested in public display, they are only interested in helping people and in noble actions, through which they improve as human beings.
The heroes: they are a mystery to women because they occupied different spheres. There is a very complex psychology on this point. There were two different types of men: the hero, a man who is very respectful towards women, not particularly handsome, sometimes clumsy, and who is honest and serious minded. This kind of man respects women and worries about their problems.
The anti-hero: is a very funny person, attractive, handsome, just the person every one wants to have at their parties. You cannot trust them, they only worry about themselves and do not respect women. Sometimes anti-heroes correspond with prime antagonists.
Prime antagonists: they represent the main obstacles that the heroine has to save. They are not always hostile, they can even be friendly persons, nice and sympathetic. But they create confusion on the heroine.
Caricatures: they can be very hostile to the heroine but they are too stupid to be dangerous. They help the reader to contrast their behaviour with the heroine's. They allow for parody and contribute to clear things up.
Minor characters: they are distant characters that remain in the background of the story and very little is known about them.
Tony Tanner is another Jane Austen critic and has made another taxonomy or her characters:
There are three types of characters:
Guardians: they are the old generation. They represent the 'old England', the aristocracy of the land, the official values of the current times.
Inheritors: they are the young generation, those who depend on the guardians.
Interlopers: they are the new emergent middle-classes. Most often come from the city and embody negative values.
According to Vivian Jones Jane Austen's novels can be divided into three different parts:
Introduction: the main characters and settings are introduced to the reader.
The different characters interact: they establish relationships up to a moment of crisis (climax)
Analysis of effects and restoration of balance.
The main characters have a moment of anagnorisis (recognition of their mistakes) and they restore the status-quo or climax. This point usually coincides with the prime antagonists in a celebration of a very important assembly like a ball, a dinner party, etc, that can be very dangerous for the heroines. These kind of assemblies mean a danger for them because of the hypocrisy held by the people around. Confusion appears and it is difficult to survive in such a hostile society only worried about appearances.
V. Jones also says that the main characters learn by three different ways:
Social interaction: the more relationships you have, the better, being isolated is dangerous.
Introspection: reconsidering things, having an auto-critical attitude, etc.
Observation: paying attention to all the things people say and do.
What place do Jane Austen's novels occupy in the history of Women Literature?
They were a literary subculture. Women Literature was not included in any academic canon together with Black or Jewish, etc. We can notice three stages, according to E. Showalter:
Women literature tries to imitate the dominant ideological values. They look up to these values. There is an internalisation of them: of femininity, duty, sensibility, intuition, spirituality, etc.
Women protest against these dominant values and speak against them, now they despise them. Political activism.
And then another stage of self-discovery where a female culture is born.
