Jane Austen's Emma
Jane Austen's Gentleman Ideal in Emma

In her third novel, Jane Austen created a flawed but sympathetic heroine in the young Emma oodhouse. idely considered her finest work, Austen's Emma once again deals with social mores, particularly those dealing with ethical actions and social status.

This paper focuses on how Austen uses the figure of George Knightley to propose a new English Gentleman Ideal to criticize the strictures regarding the role of women and the skewed relationship between the sexes. In the first part, this paper looks at the social world of England in the early 19th century, in which Austen lived. It then compares the reality of these conditions with the seemingly idyllic settings Austen portrayed in novels like Emma.

The second part of the paper then examines Austen's redefinitions of the ideal English gentleman, as embodied by Mr. Knightley. Despite the expected happy ending, this paper argues that Austen…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Emma, vol. 4. Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen. R.W. Chapman, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

Johnson, Claudia. Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).

Weldon, Fay. "England in Austen's Time." Readings on Jane Austen. Clarice Swisher, ed. (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997)

Jane Austen, Emma, vol. 4, Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen. R.W. Chapman, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

Jane Austen's Persuasion: Anne Elliot's Coming Out The writings of Jane Austen are often considered to be the representation of an excessively conservative era. Though this may truly be the case especially in regards to the formal and informal interactions between the opposite genders. A woman's reputation could be made or broken by a simple turn of events. The challenge of maintaining these standards for conduct, where even the minutest misunderstanding might cause years of disassociation seems to be as formidable as any. The story is one of the personal growth of the heroine Anne Elliot. She branches out into a world, limited by her position but much less so than before.
Though waters of social understanding were often murky the reality of Persuasion is such that the heroine, Anne Elliot is assuming the role of "director" of her own life. Austen is telling the story of a woman learning that…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane Persuasion. Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Ltd., 1993.

Emma: The Character of Frank Churchill and 'reading' the moral qualities of men in Jane Austen
One of the challenges posed by Jane Austen, of her heroine Emma oodhouse, in the novel entitled Emma, is how Emma must learn to be a good reader of both male and female characters. The persona of Frank Churchill poses a constant series of challenges to Emma -- is Frank a rouge and a coxcomb, or is he a nice young man, worthy (and willing) as a marital prospect? This education of Emma in moral terms is illustrated by the choice eventually posed for the titular heroine, between Mr. Knightly and Frank Churchill. By becoming a better reader of the human character in general, Emma learns that Mr. Knightly is the better choice of the two male romantic prospects, and also, by extension that she has misread the female characters of Harriet Smith and Jane…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Emma. Austen.com. First Published 1815. Available online at

Emma Woodhouse and Frank Churchill
Jane Austen in her novel, 'Emma', has created two very identical characters namely the heroine of the novel, Emma and the man she becomes infatuated with, Frank Churchill. Both the characters bear many similarities with regard to their disposition, attributes and social standing. The passages that introduce the two characters reveal that they both grew up in affluent families and did not have much to worry about. This opulence had a profound impact on their personalities and both turned into vain, self-absorbed persons as adults.

A brief look at the introduction of Frank and Emma shows how the two characters acquired similar attributes. The opening lines of the novel introduce the heroine in these words:

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with…...

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References

Austen, Jane. EMMA. 1993. Boston: Oxford UP, 1957

This is a fact that Austen herself most certainly appreciated as an unmarried female of the same social set she was writing about, which explains the centrality of this concept to so many of her novels. Persuasion is far from the only Austen novel where conflicts between emotional love and the necessary practical considerations of marriage arise, nor the only one where ironic changes in circumstance lead to the formation and/or solidification -- as well as the dissolution -- of friendships. Similar circumstances occur in Emma and Pride and Prejudice, for example, and Anne Elliott could certainly have taught Emma Wodehouse and Elizabeth Bennett something about love and politics as these two heroines of these respective novels also navigate the waters of their social class and end up finding themselves husbands, whether or not they even knew they were looking.
Elizabeth Bennett regarded most men with disdain -- most people,…...

Having said this, it is difficult to image a man such as Darby falling for her.
The film version of Elizabeth is also changed by certain plot changes that were made in the movie. Perhaps one of the most annoying scenes in the film is when Elizabeth goes outside in her bedclothes. Austen's Elizabeth would have never done such a thing. It is also worth noting that it is difficult to believe that the Bennets were as poor as the film depicted. A few of the party scenes where Elizabeth is the object of Darcy's attention are excluded from the film and they do not allow us to see Elizabeth's true character like we should. It is also worth noting that her personality seems to change halfway through the film. The first part of the film she spends far too much time giggling and in the second half of the…...

Rochester was burned and maimed in a fire set by his first wife who had all this time lived in the attic of the house guarded by a nurse. The man who once had the confident gait is seen standing blindly in the rain as Jane approaches the house after her decision is made to return to Rochester. The scene is reversed as Jane stands talking to Rochester who is now groping through air with a stump for an arm and with blinded eyes straining to see and it is now her turn to assure him of her devotion because she is already fulfilled in the knowing that she is just what he wants:
On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere stump -- a ghastly sight! Don't you think so,…...

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Bibliography

Bronte, Charlotte (nd) Jane Austen [Online] located at ge.com/read / janeeyre.htmlhttp://www.literaturepa

Austen, Jane (1951) Pride and Prejudice RE #22 Paperback Edition

Bronte, Charlotte (nd) Jane Austen [Online] located at   / janeeyre.htmlhttp://www.literaturepage.com/read 

Bronte & Austen: Contrast and Comparison of Rochester & Darby

Obedience in Jane Austen's Persuasion
Is obedience a virtue or a vice? Actually, it can be either. As Shakespeare notes, "Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, / And vice sometime by action dignified" (2.3.21-22). This means that one can obey an unjust order and commit a sin, or one can disobey an unjust order be virtuous. The question of obedience in Austen's Persuasion is a serious one because what hinges upon it is the fate of two individuals who love each other. It is the age-old theme of two people who are in love being separated by some authority figure. Austen explores this tension by locating it in the social context of Bath, where high society flourishes in a state of superficial exuberance. Thus, the question of obedience is tied to the social view of poverty. Anne's family and Lady Russell try to convince her that poverty is the main…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1899. Print.

Duffy, Joseph. "Structure and Idea in Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'." Nineteenth-Century

Fiction, vol. 8, no. 4 (March 1954): 272-289. Print.

Milgram, Stanley. "The Perils of Obedience." Harper's Magazine, 1974. Web. 28 Nov

Feminist Reading of Austen's Persuasion
"I Will Not Allow ooks to Prove Anything":

Women Reading and Women Writing in Austen's Persuasion

Feminist criticism is equally concerned with female authorship and with female readership and in the case of Jane Austen, both issues must be addressed. Frantz in 2009 noted that on one level Austen's influence on female readership has been immense: she claims that "readers and authors of contemporary romance claim Jane Austen as the fountainhead of all romance novels," a genre which constituted the "largest share of the consumer market in 2008" but which is assumed to have an exclusively female readership. Yet feminist criticism of the early novel overall has begun to focus specifically on the rationale offered for novel-reading in the eighteenth century, when the printer's apprentice Samuel Richardson wrote Pamela in imitation of what Jenny Davidson describes as "conduct manuals," or books of etiquette for female readers. As Davidson…...

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Bibliography

Austen, Henry. "A Memoir of Jane Austen." A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections. Ed. Kathryn Sutherland. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 147-154. Print.

Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1981. Print.

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. Project Gutenberg. Web.

Davidson, Jenny. Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

Emma
The Marriages in Emma, by Jane Austin

Emma is the story of four marriages and the realities that motivated these couples to join together. This paper will examine the factors that come into play when a man makes his decision to marry and the degree of love and emotional attachment each relationship reflects. The unions are looked at in order of highest degree of emotional attachment and love to least.

Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins

Emma attempts to make a match between Mr. Elton, the village vicar, and Harriet Smith, a seventeen-year-old woman of undetermined background. In the process of bringing the two together, Harriet becomes enamored with Mr. Elton and rejects a proposal from Robert Martin, believing, with Emma's encouragement, that Martin is beneath her and Elton would raise her social status.

For his part Mr. Elton is flattered by the attention that Emma gives him during the course of her matchmaking…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: The Heritage Press, 1964.

The lack of rights within marriage that makes women basically "property" to the man is obviously central to this story, as indicated by the way in which Maria is imprisoned. There are a variety of ways in which this most disturbing of issues is addressed in the book. Women who are married loose control over their own bodies, and are required to submit to caresses to which their soul does not consent. One woman in the madhouse is, in fact, there specifically because she could not tolerate her husband's caresses. "she had been married, against her inclination, to a rich old man,... In consequence of his treatment... she had... lost her senses." (1.39) Not only is a woman prone to institutionalized rape, but she also has no right to require the man to remain as he was before they wed. Maria declaims bitterly of how her husband deteriorates into a…...

223) a person without a condition of some kind, was cruelly marginalized by society, as even the well-meaning people would avoid the connection with someone who was not seen well by the others, so as not to be marginalized in his or her turn. The situation of the woman is again entirely dependent on the man, since the society would not accept a woman who did not perform her usual role as a wife and a mother. Mrs. Smith marriage to a man who was not 'what he ought' obviously affects her long after the death of her husband: "Anne saw the misery of such feelings. The husband had not been what he ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind which made her think worse of the world than she hoped it deserved." (Austen, 2003, p. 212) as in Pride and Prejudice, there is…...

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References

Austen, J. 1996. Emma. New York: Signet Classics.

2003. Persuasion. New York: Penguin.

1983. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Bantam Classics.

Sensibility omen's Identities Are Determined and Limited by the Expectations of Their Societies
Literature written by and about women lends itself very well to feminist interpretative approaches of various kinds. Such approaches often examine the literature of earlier centuries for signs of discontent with or subversive suggestions against aspects of a society in which men have exclusive control of power. Such an approach is especially fruitful to use when examining Jane Austen's novels since she was writing in a cultural climate that did not accept direct opposition to the status quo. Only through an indirect critique could she publish views critical of the prevailing laws and conditions under which women of her time were forced to live.

By 1811, when Sense and Sensibility was published, an intense backlash against the women's rights fiction of the 1790s had made the publication of blatantly feminist works impossible in England. Yet the women's rights…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.

Cosslett, Tess. Woman to Woman: Female Friendships in Victorian Fiction. Atlantic Heights: Humanities P, 1988.

Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley: U. Of California P, 1978.

Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. Ed. And Introduction by David Blewett. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989.

These two instances of prematurely formed first impressions make up one way in which the "prejudice" of the title is shown in the novel. The characters in this novel are very quick to form opinions of each other, doing so even before they meet each other, and this has a major effect on their relationships. The result of these first two cases of unseen first impressions is actually positive, and fairly quickly resolved -- Jane and Mr. Bingley end up falling in love, proving the correctness of their hastily formed first impressions. These are instances where the affects of first impressions on character relationships are actually beneficial, because they are fulfilled. More often in the novel, however, the gossip and ballroom behavior that tends to lead to first impressions between the characters -- especially the Bennett sisters and the various men they become involved with -- ends with a different…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Penguin, 2003.

SENSIBILITY AND PAUL DE MAN "CONCLUSIONS"
Despite the fact that De man was not a trained philosopher his post war theoretical work is majorly concerned with the nature of the subject and the language in addition to the role played by language and subject in the larger epistemological question of how and what one can claim to know. As a scholar in the field of literature, however, he often took his departure from, and kept returning to, the problems that mostly affect literature in terms of language and criticism. De man did some work in literary theory and criticism dating back to 1950s, although this work cannot be associated with any previous school of criticism that were flourishing during that era. (De man 567)

esearch questions

What major theme does Austen bring about in her book 'sense and sensibility'

What styles does she use to build on the major theme?

Theoretical foundation

One obvious reason…...

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References

Moore, Lisa L. Dangerous Intimacies: History of the British Novel. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000.

O'Farrell, Mary Ann. The Nineteenth-Century English

Novel and the Blush. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1995.

Stoval, Bruce. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. 4th Ed.

I. Introduction
A. Brief overview of Jane Austen's life and works
B. Thesis statement highlighting the impact of her writings on literature and society

II. Early Life and Education
A. Background information on Austen's family and upbringing
B. Education and role of reading and writing in her childhood

III. Career as a Novelist
A. Overview of Austen's most famous works
B. Analysis of themes and characters in her novels
C. Public reception and criticism of her writing during her lifetime

IV. Influence on Literature and Society
A. Legacy of Austen's novels in English literature
B. Discussion of the portrayal of gender roles and....

I. Introduction

Begin with a brief overview of Jane Austen's life and importance as a literary figure.
Highlight the main themes and issues that you plan to discuss in the essay.

II. Jane Austen's Early Life and Influences

Discuss Austen's upbringing in Steventon, Hampshire, and the influence of her family and social circle on her writing.
Explore the impact of her education and reading habits on her literary development.
Analyze the influence of her brothers' careers in the navy and clergy on her understanding of social class and gender roles.

III. Austen's Literary Career

Discuss the publication of Austen's early novels, including....

I. Introduction
A. Brief overview of Jane Austen's life and works
B. Significance of Jane Austen as a prominent female author in the literary world

II. Early Life and Background
A. Family background and upbringing
B. Education and influences on her writing style

III. Major Works by Jane Austen
A. Pride and Prejudice
1. Plot summary
2. Analysis of main characters and themes
B. Sense and Sensibility
1. Plot summary
2. Comparison with other works and common themes
C. Emma
1. Plot summary
2. Exploration of social class and gender roles in the novel

IV. Literary Style and Themes
A. Exploration of Austen's....

Outline for Essay on Jane Austen

I. Introduction

A. Jane Austen's life and background
B. Overview of her literary career
C. Thesis statement: Jane Austen's novels explore the complexities of human relationships and social norms in Regency England.

II. The Social Landscape of Austen's Novels

A. Marriage and societal expectations
1. The importance of financial security and propriety
2. The role of women in society
B. The rigidity of social class
1. The contrast between the landed gentry and the middle class
2. The challenges faced by those who defy social conventions

III. The Role of Love and Marriage in Austen's Works

A.....