If you have read any novel of Jane Austen, when you hear name her name what comes in your mind is her critical comments on society not harsh but smooth, and her art of characterization. How strong she depicts female characters and male characters soft. It comes to mind that she is a kind of feminist.
Jane Austen, an English novelist. She is one of the great novelists of the 19th century. She is known for her six major novels that interpret, critique, and comment upon British society at the end of the 18th century. Her writings, the way she uses biting irony, along with her realism, humor, and social commentary made her one of the great masters of English novels. Her novels are about the typical life of normal people and families.
Jane Austen died at the age of 41 on 18 July 1817. Even after two centuries of her death, her novels are still considered as best. Austen was not so much famous during her lifetime. At that time female writers were not acceptable so like many female writers she started publishing anonymously. When they were published her works were considered as fashionable but received only a few reviews. By the middle of the 19th century, her novels were admired by various members of the literary elite. They viewed their appreciation of her works as a mark of cultivation. In early 1838 her novels were being recommended on school reading lists.
After reading her novels one can find out that in her novels she depicts characters who seem familiar to her and most of the character’s chief interest was matrimony. She, in her novels, presents criticism of rural society around her and it seems that she confines herself to the middle-class society.
Mainly the themes of the novels of Jane Austen are love and marriage. In her novel “Pride and Prejudice” the opening line says “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” this is one of the best opening lines of English literature which shows Jane Austen’s satirical comment on society. In her novels, a young woman falls in love with a rich and desirable man. And after all the difficulties faced by the female protagonists, everything ends very well.
The most interesting and praiseworthy thing in the novels of Jane Austen is her art of characterization. She creates living characters, minutely portrayed and well described. In her novels, males are soft than female characters. The female characters especially protagonists of novels are so bold and perfect. The way she used to present female characters, females from the 21st century can learn a lot. This shows how she imagines at that time about the freedom and rights of females. Hence, we can say that she feminized an English novel. Her most memorable characters like Darcy Elizabeth, Emma and John Thrope, etc.
Name of her famous novels
1811 – Sense and Sensibility
1813 – Pride and Prejudice
1814 – Mansfield Park
1815 – Emma
1818 – Northanger Abbey (posthumous)
1818 – Persuasion (posthumous)