Jane Austen's novels really aren't romances, at least not in the sense of being about romance. Austen writes such pretty prose in a magical world of balls and mansions and romantic attachments signified with the least pressing of a hand on another, where the greatest measure of villainy is bad manners or an unfaithful heart, and things like slavery, poverty (Fanny's "poor" parents, whom she visits at one point after many years apart, have their own house and servants, just not as big a house or as many servants as the Bertrams), the Industrial Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars just don't enter into this world.
They don't enter directly into Jane Austen's world. But they exert a powerful indirect effect. Jane Austen's main characters are gently-reared women who could -- if they act unwisely -- fall into disgrace or at best genteel poverty. They are quite aware of this, and of the fact that their only hopes of avoiding this fate are to find good husbands.
Jane Austen's own life was terribly circumscribed. She could not find a good husband -- she apparently rejected one wealthy suitor whom she did not love, and one relatively poor gentleman whom she did -- and she spent most of her life as a sort of assistant to other members of her family in return for room and board. Just when she started to actually realize a meaningful income and fame from her writing, she contracted a painful and fatal illness (probably one easily curable with modern medicine and surgery) and died in middle age.
And she was lucky in some ways. Her siblings loved her, so that when her parents died she was sheltered by affectionate people rather than exploited by uncaring ones. Many in her position would have been forced to become gentlewoman's companions, or worse, and not granted the leisure to write.
And she knew all these things. Acutely and well. Which is why her writing has such passion and power, even though it seems to be about a fairytale upper-crust world. Jane Austen knew how fragile was social status, and if she rarely talks about what happens to those "disgraced," it's in part because the prospect is too terrifying to face directly.
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They don't enter directly into Jane Austen's world. But they exert a powerful indirect effect. Jane Austen's main characters are gently-reared women who could -- if they act unwisely -- fall into disgrace or at best genteel poverty. They are quite aware of this, and of the fact that their only hopes of avoiding this fate are to find good husbands.
Jane Austen's own life was terribly circumscribed. She could not find a good husband -- she apparently rejected one wealthy suitor whom she did not love, and one relatively poor gentleman whom she did -- and she spent most of her life as a sort of assistant to other members of her family in return for room and board. Just when she started to actually realize a meaningful income and fame from her writing, she contracted a painful and fatal illness (probably one easily curable with modern medicine and surgery) and died in middle age.
And she was lucky in some ways. Her siblings loved her, so that when her parents died she was sheltered by affectionate people rather than exploited by uncaring ones. Many in her position would have been forced to become gentlewoman's companions, or worse, and not granted the leisure to write.
And she knew all these things. Acutely and well. Which is why her writing has such passion and power, even though it seems to be about a fairytale upper-crust world. Jane Austen knew how fragile was social status, and if she rarely talks about what happens to those "disgraced," it's in part because the prospect is too terrifying to face directly.