The Work of Jane Austen - Essay Example

Outline Different write what they experience in their or what they think is attainable in their future livelihood. However, most of them contrast their life undertakings to what they pen down for the readers to read. This paper, therefore, explains the work of Jane Austen on how she used the stylistic features, themes, characteristics, plot, and politics in her own work. It also contrasts the aspects of her life. Introduction Jane Austen was a famous novelist, prominently an English author and her work was considered as canon part of Western culture. She was noted and became influential novelist in their time due to her insights on lives of women and irony. Jane was 5th born in the family of Rev. George Austen at the Hampshire and lived in the area for most of her life. She never married. She was briefly educated by her relative in Southampton, currently Oxford in 1783 and later at Reading Ladies boarding school. Generally, her education was only based on superior education given to girls of the time. In addition, she started writing her first tale as early as 1789. Jane Austen’s life was not happy especially in love and tranquil because she was simply uneventful. The movement of her family to Bath gave her scene to many episodes used in her different writings. There was a time she received a marriage proposal from a wealthy young man but turned it down the next day, reasonably that she did not love him. In her work, Austen anonymously published her tales in order to contemporary adhere the convention of the female authors. Fortunately, her publications continued to achieve the popularity and esteem although she could not lead the literally circles due to her anonymity. Her choice of writing the stories of love in the career, which coincided with the movement of romance contrasted with her life since she personally unromantic. The emotion of passion created in her novels moderates’ rational exercise in finding the real happiness than eloping with a lover. Austen became famous for her mature works in socializing the manners of the comedies. For example Emma, was cited to be perfected in the form, which the critics continue to approach in a perspective of the predicament of English women who were not married (Scott, 58-69). During this period (1800s), the customs and the laws of inheritance determined the fortunes of the families to the male partners. The literary styles of the Jane Austen relied on the combination of the irony, parody, free indirect speech, realism and the burlesque. The usage of burlesque and parody was for comic effects in order to criticize the women’s portrayal in the gothic and sentimental novels of 18th century. Jane Austen also uses ironic tone to highlight social hypocrisy through the usage of free indirect speech. This is created by mixing the characters and the narrator’s voice in order to draw up the thought to the reader. The characters used by Austen are argued by critics to have psychological effects regarding the realism used in her work. Many scholars argue that she lies in tradition of realism due to her emphasis and portrayal of characters. The plots of Austen are mostly about education where it changes the conduct of other people and become moral and better people. Her themes include morality, which was characterized by manners. The seriousness of religion and the duties to the society are also among the major themes of her works. As it can be contrasted to the own life, most of Austen works explores the economic situations on which women found themselves in 18th and 19th centuries. This makes many scholars and critics to agree that Austen’s novels reflected or highlighted female characters in their own world and the way they take charge in a spiritual and physical form. In another aspect, the novels of Austen are described as progressive and conservative political scenario. One point of argumentative claims is that, the heroines in the Austen’s work supports the existence of social structures through the sacrifice and duty dedications on their personal desires. Another claim is that, through her ironic tone, Austen is skeptical to ruling others. In exploring the political issues, Jane Austen addressed issues relating to properties and monies. In particular, she addressed the positions of women economically and the arbitrations of inheriting the properties. The styles used by Austen helped her to clarify the themes intended for the readers. She used burlesque and parody to demonstrate the social convention such as parental guidance contempt is impractical, and continues to say that the characters “are dead to all common sense” (Grundy, 189-210). She uses burlesque and parody for comic effects as well as to reveal how Gothic and sentimental novels changed the women living standards for those who attempted to depict the roles outline in them (Waldron, 7-14). Another style used by Austen is the irony. This is the major technique and characteristic, which she used in all of her novels. Austen used irony to contrast the actual meaning of a given statement with a comic in order to undermine the original meaning to develop disjunctions. She also used irony in her mature novels in order to keep social hypocrisy. She criticizes the market of the marriage by the use of irony. For example, in the novel Pride and Prejudice, she says, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" (Austen, 1993, pp3). The statement is straightforward at a glance, but the plot of the entire novel contradicts it. It means that, it is the women who do not have fortunes, needs husbands in order to seek them. Contrasting to her own life, this statement means that Austen should not seek husband since they were stable and needs no husband to give her the fortunes. Another style used by Austen is the free indirect speech in her works. In this technique, the speech and the thoughts of the used characters mixed with the narrator’s voice. It was used by Austen to compress or provide summaries of the conversations of a character’s thoughts or speech. For example, in Sense and Sensibility, Austen writes, “Mrs John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum?” (Austen, 122). In this example, the first sentence is a straight explanatory in the narrator’s voice, but the third sentence is just a normal but indirect speech. However, the second and the fourth sentences is what are being described as the free indirect speech. The two sentences being described as the free indirect speech creates an illusion to the reader in entering the minds of a character by representing the inner thoughts of the characters. The other style used by Austen is the language and conversation. When comparing the other novels of early 19th century, the work of Austen contains more dialogue and has little scenic descriptions and narratives. The dialogue used is written, either represented, or even spoken. Letters mostly play a decisive role in offering the protagonist education, for example in the Pride and Prejudice, which opens chapters as theatrical in tone and begins as an epistolary novel. The conversation of Austen’s work contains rapid exchange between the characters, many sentences that are short, and questions and answers in pairs. Another style used by the Austen is the realism. Lack of using physical descriptions in her work led the critics argue of unreality in the novels. There are no presence of words that refers to the physical perception, color, and shape in the novels. However, Austen researched carefully on the background of her novels to describe the geography and chronology of her world of fiction in an accurate manner. This analogy was to enhance her effort to remain anonymous throughout her work as she wrote her books contrasting her life. The different themes used by the Austen also had a contrasting relationship to her life. The theme of education and reading had directly related to her career hobby of reading. It also reflects her undertakings in the livelihood. For example, in the Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth did better from the process of errors, recognition of the errors and the determinations (Devlin, 1). It can be contrasted with the time when Austen disliked and rejected the rich young man, who was seeking marriage relationship, simply because she had no love feelings on him. This means that, Austen realized herself of not having any love for the young man and becomes a contrast to her work, which narrates towards the moment of self-realization. Even though, narratives are associated with the moral and intellectual developments. Another theme used by Austen is the gender. The narratives encouraged women to counter the discrimination of being regarded as inferior in the society. Austen publishing the novels anonymously since she was not supposed to do it evidences this discrimination. She urged women through the narratives to counter the discrimination through spiritual and moral cultivation in order to offer charitable services to the community and families. Austen also used the theme of politics in her narratives. She can be regarded as a conservative writer since her plot broadly suggests the suffering victim in the hands of the society. It can be argued that Austen’s work represents someone who is right and one who is wrong. The wrong person learns from her own mistakes through their recognition and resolves them to do better in life. This can be contrasted to the life of Austen who realized the mistakes women do, marrying for fortunes, and tries to rectify them through advocacy in the novels. In conclusion, Jane Austen used different styles and themes in her literary works to contrast the realities of her life undertakings. Works Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald Gray. 1813. New York: W. Norton and Co., 1993. Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Ed. Ros Ballaster. 1811. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Grundy, Isobel. Jane Austen and Literary Traditions. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. Eds. Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-49867-8. Waldron, Mary. Jane Austen and the Fiction of Her Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-00388-1 Devlin, D. D. Jane Austen and Education. London: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 0-333-14431-2. Scott, Walter. Walter Scott, an unsigned review of Emma, Quarterly Review. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870. Ed. B. C. Southam. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968 Read More