Background

Question 1

Focus of her work

Answer 1

• class
  
  • predicament of women
  • the limited choices of impoverished upper class women
    
    • governess
      
      • Jane Fairfax (Vol II, Chap XVII or 35)
        - Mrs. Elton tries to find her a job
        - Jane becomes very distressed
      • the sale of human intellect
  • the gypsies
    
    • lack of property and set class standing
• money
  
  • impact of trade
  • constant discussion of money
    
    • the eligibility is a matter of social concern
• marriage
  
  • institution by which a society perpetuates itself
  • how marriage is decided, structured etc.
    
    • investigation into structure of society
    • the social contract
      - engagement is public business
      - therefore the secret engagement becomes ‘treason’ to the society
  • no heroines ever marry solely for money
    
    • yet none of them marry men that have no prospects
    • augustan balance
• morality
  
  • journey to a different moral position
  • morality specific to her time and context
    - narrator’s horror at secret engagement
• impoverished gentry
• the impact of environment on identity
  
  • relationship between personality and material circumstances
• position on society
  
  • both pro and against
  • ideological loyalty lies in Augustan values
  • assumes relatively conservative position
    
    • some social progression
    • people improving social standing
      
      • trade
      • people improve social status in careers
      • e.g. navy

Question 2

The rise of the novel

Answer 2

• 2nd generation of novelists
• inferior form
  
  • something which would appeal only to women
• Austen’s stance
  
  • novel capable of serious moral investigation
  • novel can have significant aesthetic value
• growth of the novel hampered by illiteracy and expense
  
  • but circulating libraries started
  • linked to middle class
    
    • opportunities available for leisure
    • offers the possibility for extended changes in circumstance, chronology and character development

Question 3

Role of abstraction in her novels

Answer 3

• Austen’s habit of using abstract nouns as both titles and throughout the novels
  novels about ideas, not just about modes of conduct
• focus moves from characters to the ideas and issues which they represent

Question 4

Comedy and Irony

Answer 4

• Emma’s misunderstandings
  
  • satirisation of her blunders, the focus and opinions of Emma
  • gap between opinions of omniscient narrator and Emma diminishes as the novel progresses
• the structure of comedy
  
  • exclusion of death
    
    • only Mrs Churchill - she isn’t liked
  • happily ever after
  • marriage
    
    • the lovers
  • the structure of society
    
    • different type of logic
      
      • artificial logic
      • outside of this microcosm these realities do not work out the way it does in the novel
  • the idea of appropriate humour
  • propriety

Question 5

Realism

Answer 5

• certain perception of reality backed up by certain techniques
• powerful and intimate connection between individual and greater society
  
  • interplay is frequently a focus of the novel
  • fighting against or yielding to the society
• close observation
  
  • rely on close connection between world-word structure
• linear chronological
  
  • moves towards closure
• omniscient narrator
  
  • judgemental narrator, no simple observation
  • doesn’t reveal secret engagement to readers
  • in an argument it is clear which side is supported

Question 6

Preconceptions of her work

Answer 6

• Butler - The War of Ideas
  
  • seminal work on Austen
    
    • changed the preconceptions of her works
• Austen’s world
  
  • preconceptions
  • “3 or 4 families in a country village”
  • “the little bit of ivory, two inches wide”