Jane Austen: Defense of the Novel

By Sara E. Kieffer
Literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was generally dominated y male
authors writing on the !omantic idealism of a social"centered society. #hese oo$s were meant
to e read y a %ulic audience& ut instead remained hovering in a realm of u%%er"class literate
males. 'en were considered the su%erior eings of nature and mind& and thus only their intellect
was ca%ale of understanding the %assion of thought and ideas. (omen& on the other hand& had a
different sort of literature written for them: the ever"inferior novel. #he loss of %restige in the
)novel&* according to '. +. Arams& is ecause of the fact that the leading novelists at the time
were women, and so the novel came to e considered a -feminine %reserve. /0123. Such familiar
literary icons as 4anny Burney& Ann !adcliffe& 'aria Edgeworth& and Jane Austen were among
these frivolous novelists. #heir novels lac$ed true %assion and %olitics& said the critics. Austen&
however& did not agree. Austen*s novels gave readers a new style and %ur%ose to e read& and at
the same time gave the novel a reason to e5ist.
During this time %eriod& women were %laced in a s%here of domestic anti6uity. #hey were
raised y their mothers to %rovide %leasure and en7oyment to their future husands& learning such
lessons in music& art& and conversation as would %rovide entertainment. As an afterthought&
women were allowed to read& %erha%s for their own %ersonal en7oyment. (hat they were allowed
to read& however& caused 6uite a stir in the literary world: novels& %rose fiction& and the gallant
sentimental romanticism elonging to the 8othic or !adcliffean genre. #hese oo$s were
frivolous novels set out for %urely 6uiet en7oyment and no functional value. #hey were& as one
critic said& -men*s %atroni9ing contem%t for female intelligence:all cons%ired to $ee% women in
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a condition of mental and emotional de%endence. /;astle 5i53. <f one wanted literary %restige at
this time& one did not write a novel. A few female writers& such as ;harlotte Bront=& 'ary
(ollstonecraft& and Jane Austen& chose to s%ea$ out aout this conce%t of female inferiority.
Bront=& in her writings& refused to allow the -ruffles. of this genre to come in contact with her
own %rofound sensiilities /Arams >22?3. (ollstonecraft o%enly chastised society in her
Vindications on the Rights of Women, 1792. Austen chose sim%ly to e5%loit the conventions of
women and society in her novels.
Austen*s %ur%ose was two"fold: one& to defend woman*s ca%aility of com%rehension,
and two& to defend the e5istence of the novel itself. +er su7ects and the content of her novels do
seem to conform to the 8othic romanticism %o%ular at the time. (hat is not reali9ed& however& is
that Austen chose her su7ects and content ased on her own %ersonal life: that of the %rovincial
English e5istence. #his %ersonal e5%erience allowed Austen more time to focus on the issues and
lessons she wished to convey rather than on the ma$ings of imagined settings. #he realism of her
novels %rovides the -o%%ortunities for testing her heroine*s %ractical sense and moral integrity&
their degree of $nowledge of the world and of themselves& and their ca%acity to demonstrate
grace under social and financial %ressure. /Arams >22?3. #his was her whole %oint. She wasn*t
writing aout what Bront= called -ruffles&. she was writing to e5%ose societal stereoty%es and
conventions.
A %rime e5am%le of Austen*s criticism on society is her novel Northanger Abbey. <n
Northanger Abbey& Austen creates the character of ;atherine 'orland as the archety%e female in
a male"dominated society. ;atherine is a young& flighty socialite osessed with the !omantic
sentimentality so much so that it fogs her rain and %roves her inade6uate to ta$e on the
surrounding world y herself. Austen created ;atherine as a mirror of the effects of choosing to
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demean women in society y im%ro%er education. ;ritic #erry ;astle elieves that Austen
-re%eatedly connects ;atherine 'orland*s failure to thin$ with the fact that she has never een
taught to thin$. #he %rolem is not individual inca%acity ut lac$ of education: ;atherine has
een made stu%id:y a society which fails to honour the intelligence of its female memers.
/5i53. Austen shows that lac$ of education leads to erratic reasoning s$ills in women.
'any writers of this time& male and female& critici9ed the e5istence of these novels.
Austen was included among these critics of romantic frivolity even though she was also a writer
of it. +er %ur%ose in writing novels& however& was not 7ust for the %leasure of women& ut for
their education /Arams 0123. Austen elieved that y %roducing a %iece of fiction one could
also e5%loit the conventions and ignorance of society. Austen followed the ideas of
(ollstonecraft in elieving that -society $e%t women:as a se5:in a state of intellectual
childishness from which few were ale to esca%e. /;astle 5viii3. (omen were unale -to
develo% their own innate %owers of 7udgment and understanding. ecause they were raised in the
focus of attentions to men /;astle 5viii3. <n Northanger Abbey& Austen was ale to convey her
criticism more acce%taly than (ollstonecraft could in her %ieces. Austen was ale to do this&
and e acce%ted& ecause she used rhetoric and %rose to convey the message& instead of directly
s%ea$ing out against society. <n her novels& Austen was ale to e5amine and criti6ue -the
conventions of contem%orary fiction in order to e5%ose and delight in oth their asurdity and
their %ower to engross the imagination and to create a res%onse. /4ergus 213.
Austen oviously had her own views on the %ur%ose of a novel. She felt that a novelist
was $ey to e5%ressing those criticisms on society that could lead to reform. <n Northanger
Abbey& Austen s%ea$s 6uite o%enly aout the e5tent to which a novel should e %roduced and
how. A novelist& she says& has the aility to -act as a eacon to her female readers: an ins%iriting
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reminder that women as well as men can achieve:and ear witness to:the most thorough
$nowledge of human nature. /;astle 55v3. #he im%ro%er education of women in society leads
them to ignorance& and only through the reading of %ro%er fiction can women ho%e to esca%e this
in7ustice. ;atherine 'orland& Austen*s heroine in Northanger Abbey& is aware of her ignorance:
She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A mis%laced shame. (here %eo%le wish to
attach& they should always e ignorant. #o come with a well"informed mind& is to come
with an inaility of administering to the vanity of others& which a sensile %erson would
always wish to avoid. A woman es%ecially& if she have the misfortune of $nowing
anything& should conceal it as well as she can /0@3.
#he issue at hand for ;atherine is her ignorance of the outside world due to her education in life.
;atherine*s mother never too$ the time to %ro%erly care for her daughter or instill life*s lessons
in her. As such& ;atherine turned to novels& es%ecially Ann !adcliffe*s Mysteries of Udolpho.
;atherine is a %erfect e5am%le of how women are e5%osed too highly to light fiction& and that
they are never taught to not elieve all is true. #herefore& women should e taught this
awareness. <f women are going to read& then let them read something of sustance and not
)novelty.* Austen*s %ur%ose& then& is to %ass on this awareness of thought etween women
through the genre of the novel itself /;astle 55iv3.
Austen had a %ersonal desire to recreate the genre of the novel. +owever fortunate that
she was to e e5cluded from the asurdity of what society called a )woman*s education&* she was
well aware of this factor in women around her. At one %oint& she said& -in 7ustice to men& that
though to the larger and more trifling %art of the se5& imecility in females is a great
enhancement on their %ersonal charms& there is a %ortion of them too reasonale and too well
informed themselves to desire any thing more in woman than ignorance. /Austen 0@3. Austen
des%ised this sentimentality. She wished only to hel% women rise aove this as she did herself. <f
women were to read novels& then she was going to give them a reason to. Austen*s %lan was to
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%ut out -forms and theories to the test of the everyday& without which they were& as she saw it&
merely sustitutes for coherent and rational delieration. /(aldron >@3. She was going to ring
into her novels all the larger moral& %hiloso%hical& and social issues %revalent in society that
women were su%%osed to $now& including -the folly of letting literature get in the way of life& the
ine5cusaility of not thin$ing for oneself& the %ainful difficulties involved:es%ecially for
women:in growing u%. /;astle 5ii3.
<n Northanger Abbey& Austen %roved that through reflecting on e5%erience and
rationali9ing the events and attitudes of life& one could ecome ale to reason and com%rehend
all the ma7or issues surrounding an individual. ;atherine 'orland does 7ust this. ;atherine& at
first& focuses all her attention on the fiction of life and not the reality of it. Austen ho%ed that
through her reformation of the novel women would not have to e5%erience this. 8ood fiction&
that which a women should e e5%osed to& was -only some wor$ in which the greatest %owers of
the mind are dis%layed& in which the most thorough $nowledge of human nature& the ha%%iest
effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the est chosen language. /Austen ??3.
#he novel should e a reflection on the nature of society& not 7ust something %lot"ased. ;ritics
cannot say that Austen was writing -ruffles.. She was writing to e5%ose the asurd nature of the
romantic novels* convention. She was writing to free women from the mundane %hiloso%hies of
the male literary world& ut at the same time %ass on a com%lete moral lesson. #he education of
women e5isted in the use of the novel& and therefore it could not e frivolous or void of literary
value.
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Biliogra%hy
Arams& '.+.& ed. #he Norton Anthology of English Literature. New Cor$:
(.(. Norton D ;om%any& ?EE>.
Austen& Jane. Northanger Aey. F5ford: F5ford Gniversity Hress& >II0.
;astle& #erry. <ntroduction. Northanger Aey. By Jane Austen. F5ford: F5ford
Gniversity Hress& >II0.
4ergus& Jan. Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel. New Jersey: Barnes D Nole Boo$s&
>I02.
(aldron& 'ary. Jane Austen and the 4iction of her #ime. GK: ;amridge Gniversity
Hress& >III.
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