Societal expectations motivate the characters of Jane Austen’s Emma. Because societal perception plays such a large role in the lives of these characters, many concern themselves with how they should behave; a fact which Austen underscores by...

The struggle between women and authority has been a central concern for novelists throughout the ages, yet the rise of the novel in the 18th century brought with it the increase in number of female narrators and authors, giving women a platform...

Simone de Beauvoir’s belief that one “is not born” but becomes a woman holds most true in Jane Austen’s portrayal of her fictional heroines in 17th century England, such as Fanny Price in Mansfield Park – such ‘coming of age’, in a twist of the...

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.” (Austen, 03)

First published in 1814, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, while on the surficial level posits itself as a conventional...

Mansfield Park is widely regarded as Austen’s least popular novel. Both the novel’s more serious and didactic tone, as well as the timid personality of its heroine, differ considerably from those of Austen’s other works. However, the main problem...

Tom is one of the earliest characters Fanny, and consequently, the reader is introduced to at Mansfield Park. He is the eldest son of the Bertram family and has been raised accordingly. Although he is not the most present character in the novel,...

In a letter to her brother dated 1814, Jane Austen boasted about a compliment she had received from a friend on her most recent work, Mansfield Park: "It's the most sensible novel he's ever read" (263). Austen prided herself on creating literature...

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....

"All the world's a stage/ And all the men and women merely players."

-As You Like It II.vii.139

A large portion of the plot of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (Austen, 1814) describes the young gentlemen and ladies of the estate preparing a performance...

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...

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...

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...

A character’s views on morality and material gain seem to form the distinction between being a “good” or “bad” character in Austen’s novel Mansfield Park. By conducting a character analysis of Lady Bertram, Mary Crawford, and Sir Thomas, one can...

While Edmund first shows himself to be compassionate and morally grounded as a character, he also shows that these qualities, as well as his own perceptions, are capable of being corrupted, mainly due to his romantic attachment to Miss Crawford in...

The party line for Jane Austen’s Persuasion traditionally emits the idea that true love can combat all obstacles despite what menacing circumstances present. This romantic notion gives the implication a person is in control of his/her own fate. ...

Though very little is told in terms of her backstory, Lady Russell is nonetheless one of those characters that almost covertly dictate the course of the novel in a quite radical manner. More precisely, the widow exerts a very high degree of...

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. Austenâs novels, including Emma, Pride and Prejudice,...

Jane Austen novels tend to exhibit a certain kind of life: parties, walks in the park, trips to London or Bath, posturing for a particularly advantageous marriage - in a word, privilege. In addition, this world is structured according to a...

"[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...

Jane Austen's Perfect Heroine:

The Use of Reserve in Persuasion

"Her character was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself."

Jane Austen, Persuasion

Anne Elliot is often described as Jane Austen's most mature and perfect heroine; and so she is. One...

Jane Austen's insightful and influential novel Persuasion is an emotional tale of human conduct, and, in particular, of the moral implications of direct and indirect persuasion. The impact of the words of Sir Charles Grandison "...there is great...

As writers of moral narratives, Jane Austen and Samuel Johnson demonstrate the value of reason and contentedness over imagination and ambition. Johnson’s influence on Austen as an author of moral purpose becomes clear in a comparison of their two...

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...

Throughout Jane Austen’s Persuasion, observations arise concerning the differences between the two genders. There is an ongoing dispute between what is and is not intrinsic to one gender as opposed to the other. Anne’s observations on the matter...