As the world celebrates the 200th anniversary of the publication of some of her most important works, Jane Austen’s popularity in 2013 and the high esteem with which we hold her seems a far cry from the tone of those early reviews and even the negative views of certain critics before the onset of the 1970s feminist movement. Early reviews ruthlessly criticized her as a mere lady writer with a limited imagination, whose books were too light to merit discussion. Feminist critics saw this as a typical patriarchal interpretation of Austen’s writings, and therefore researched the repression of women in patriarchal England in the early 1800s. This paper attempts to allow Austen to answer those early harsh criticisms in defense of herself and her own novels through two main approaches in her first novel Northanger Abbey. Firstly, Austen’s dialogues and narratives in Northanger Abbey are examined to show how she was ready and able to provoke the conservative guardians of patriarchy in 1800s England. Secondly, Austen’s parody of the Gothic novel in her structuring of Northanger Abbey is investigated to show her rejection of the standard patriarchal story and its characters.
Edmund Wilson observed in the mid-twentieth century that “only two reputations have never been affected by the shifts of fashion: Shakespeare’s and Jane Austen’s” (35). Austen certainly has been the subject of endless critical analysis, some from her own contemporaries and some from the literary critics of later generations, notably the feminist movement of the twentieth century. Early reviews of Austen’s novels, according to Gilbert and Gubar, which amounted to a
Austen was never a self-proclaimed radical feminist or women’s liberationist. However, her critical observations of society in her time clearly convey the oppression of women by dominant male power. This paper will examine Austen’s first novel,
It should first be noted that
Without any further questioning, Austen moves on from the publisher’s apparent lack of interest or urgency in publishing
Answering Back with Dialogue and Narrative
Firstly, early reviews of Austen’s novels before the emergence of the feminist movement are significant in understanding how the social and political masculine views repressed female writers in general at that time. Their tendency was to reduce Austen to the status of a mere female writer whose space was defined by domesticity, her imaginative scope limited to gardens, drawing rooms, and parlors. For instance, Edward Fitzgerald criticizes Austen as someone who “never goes out of the Parlor” (qtd. in Gilbert and Gubar, 109). Emerson remarks that Austen’s novels are mainly about trivialized domesticity, as her characters only appear to be concerned with the amount of money and status that they might be able to marry into. Emerson further questions the popularity of Austen among her audience and decides that “suicide is more respectable” (109), rather than dealing with the relative degrees of suitability for marriage of the characters in Austen’s novels. Mark Twain did not disguise his own loathing of Austen either, commenting that her books were “unreadable . . . . Jane is entirely impossible . . . . a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death” (109). D. H. Lawrence simply dismissed Austen as one who “typifies ‘personality’ instead of character . . . thoroughly unpleasant, English in the bad, mean snobbish sense of the word” (109-10). These vicious critiques of Austen claim that she is the one who is responsible for any lightness and limitations of boundary in her novels.
However, it seems that these traditional masculine criticisms ignore the impact that patriarchal society of England in the 1800s would have had on Austen and are unwilling to recognize that Austen’s fictions portray women who are bound by these very same patriarchal structures. In the dialogues and narratives of
One more interesting point to note at this point is how Austen gives her various characters differing degrees of depth and breadth. According to D. W. Harding, most of the secondary characters in
In Chapter 3 of
The view that women were only able to write tedious and badly written letters implies the existence of a social agreement of differing education standards for men and women. Austen’s clarification of the condition of women’s education precedes by about one hundred years the very similar protests of Virginia Woolf, who complained about educational discrimination against women in her book
Austen then dismisses the male interest in history in order to attack the masculine view of education. Catherine confesses her dislike of history, declaring to Henry “I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?” (104). His answer presupposes that men should be fond of history since it is a most important subject for a well-educated aristocrat. Henry’s younger sister also agrees with the importance of reading history. However, Austen, after first showing Catherine’s regret at being unable to enjoy this most important topic, then adds what she really thinks about history, insisting that:
In fact, Catherine’s direct questioning of the validity and relevance of the subject must have discombobulated not only Henry but also many of her male readers, who would have held history in such high esteem. It is thus not Austen’s revelation of the condition of women but her sarcastic critiques that instill her writing with the power to provoke and reform. Catherine continues her attack on history, calling it “torment of little boys and girls” (105), which reveals the difficulties faced by the lower classes in educating their children in the home environment. Unlike the Tilneys, the poor in Austen’s England had to cope with the daily struggle to survive. Just like Catherine’s family, those boys and girls had little or no room for the study of history. It would be impossible for the poor to consider the learning of history or art in the manner in which the members of the middle class would have been able to enjoy them.
Austen then touches on the middle class perception of the importance of taste in art. When Mr. and Miss Tilney talk about drawing and pictures, “with all the eagerness of real taste” (106), the narrator relates that Catherine “knew nothing of drawing -- nothing of taste” (106). Catherine is described as feeling lost while listening to their dialogue regarding art and drawing. After Catherine’s shortcomings have been acknowledged, Austen shows how Catherine’s aesthetic views are being challenged by new views on art by saying:
As with her criticisms on the subject of history, Austen seems to be sarcastically critical of the viewing of nature through an aristocratic artistic lens, rather than seeing things as they are.
Another significant topic is about marital relationships, focusing especially on the definition of sociopolitical roles for both men and women in 1790s England. As Catherine and Henry dance together, he comments that he considers “a country-dance as an emblem of marriage” (74). Catherine insists that they are both very different things, as married people must work harder to stay happy in a marriage while dancing partners only stand opposite each other for the short period of time that they are dancing together. Yet, Henry insists on the resemblance between matrimony and dancing, stating that “in both, man has advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; . . . in both, it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each” (74). Catherine still disagrees with this comparison, prompting Henry to further lecture her on his patriarchal notion of men, women, marriage, and family, declaring that “In marriage, the man is supposed to provide for the support of the woman; the woman to make the home agreeable to man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile” (74-75). This is exactly what Poovey is referring to when she says that Austen “became more aware of what it meant to be a woman in her society” (209). In
Answering Back by Parodying Gothic Novels
England in the 1790s and early 1800s was a country in the midst of social upheaval influenced by the French Revolution. Rapid social change placed the conservatives and the reformists of the time under pressure and forced them to recognize the failings of the governing aristocracy. At the same time, both had to deal with an economic crisis that saw drastic wage and food price inflation. Yet during this transitional period for British society, both conservatives and reformists managed to defend and to maintain the status quo patriarchy. The protection of patriarchy offered stability to a nation that had a shaky leadership and a sense of lost morality (Poovy xxi). As Mackenzie observed, middle class women in particular were expected to embody qualities of “public virtue, honor and benevolence” since the very existence of the middle class depended on the establishment of “creditworthiness” (686) for women, who were coerced to present “domestic harmony, the aspiring middle class, patriotic sentiment, reproductive sexuality, and the community of taste and decency” (681) for their communities. This explains why English patriarchal men of the time demanded that their wives and daughters endow them with
During this social and political transition period, the growing influence of the female reading public emerged on the horizon, not least since reading a novel was one of the few activities permitted to women who desired to participate in any kind of public and social discourse in such a male-oriented society (Jeon 221). Despite this growing female readership, many early published novels were authored
Instead of the deconstruction of patriarchy, women writers were expected to produce ‘textbooks’ outlining good behavior for their female readers. In effect, the majority of the novels published during this period almost always featured one or two female characters of a sensitive disposition, cultivated with homely and domestic qualities befitting a proper woman. One thing that was not acceptable at the time was the depiction of any female character hinting at any adverse effect that patriarchy might have been having on women (Kim 5-6).
Austen also faces this same contradiction between an inner desire to reveal the unreasonable social repression of women, on the one hand, and her need to conduct herself according to the demanding expectations of English patriarchy, on the other. Given this apparent contradiction between authorship and femininity, Austen (along with other women writers of her time) might have felt powerless to exercise her authorial force. Yet,
Gothic fiction flourished between the 1790s and the 1820s, and represented the decay of feudal and aristocratic rights in general, while at the same time revealing women’s eagerness to exercise individual freedom in marriage and inheritance. Therefore, Gothic novels and Gothic romance were popular among women at the time, offering up tales of terror and suspense, usually set in gloomy old castles or medieval monasteries, with the help of ghosts and demons and scenes of cruelty and horror (1-2). Contemporary patriarchal society in some ways mirrored, for women at least, the dark oppression of the serfs by a feudal, aristocratic authority in the Gothic novel since in the Gothic novel, violence, rage, and cruelty were always directed against victimized heroines, who were threatened with rape or incarceration.
As mentioned above, a typical Gothic novel contains certain elements such as a gloomy setting, a demonic monster, a victimized heroine and cruel violence, as the story unfolds.
The story then moves on to the second Gothic location, General Tilney’s residence at Northanger Abbey. Here, the patriarchal authority ruthlessly exploits its power over the female members of the family. The demonic monster is General Tilney, who is an oppressive father to his own daughter, Eleanor, and is described as a man who is “accustomed on every ordinary occasion to give the law in his family” (Johnson 35). Austen hints at her parodying of Gothic novels when Catherine begins to grow suspicious of some involvement by General Tilney in the murder of Mrs. Tilney. Catherine’s own conspiracy theories evolve to the point where she almost persuades herself that the General has murdered his wife and buried her under the staircase of the abbey. Catherine even reminds herself of one monstrous character from her favorite Gothic novel: “It was the air and attitude of a Montoni!” (NA 176). In the end, Austen goes on to later expose the true horror of General Tilney, not as a murderer or a fictional devil but as a man whose exploitation of Catherine and cold rejection of her is even advanced and real in the style of Gothic horror.
Austen’s Gothic violence starts with General Tilney’s invitation to Catherine to Northanger Abbey on the grounds of his belief that she is the heiress to Mr. Allen’s estate. When he hears that this is not the case from the cunning John Thorpe, this ‘respectable country gentleman’ who seems “so polite, so well-bred and . . . so particularly fond of” (188) Catherine at once changes his demeanor towards her completely. He therefore acts on his violence towards a victimized heroine, Catherine, by ordering her out of the abbey at a moment’s notice without even a servant to guide her on her journey back home. Austen describes his manner thus: “so grossly uncivil, hurrying her away without any reference to her own convenience . . . . such ill-will against a person” (211-12.) Austen is clearly implying that for her monstrous male characters, General Tilney, John Thorpe, James Morland, and other bachelors in
As an author, Austen is unsurpassed in the simple yet powerful way in which she observes and depicts the limitations imposed on women’s daily lives by the patriarchy of her time, and therefore her novels have conveyed to generations since then the impact of that patriarchy on her contemporaries. Marilyn Butler, recognizing the importance of Austen’s exploration of the
In an article celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen in 2013, Paula Cohen commented that Austen has achieved a postmodern stardom that “meshes so well with our postmodern culture” (1). This suggests that Austen’s novels display major postmodern characteristics, such as “the nature of individual identity, the implications of gender roles . . . [t]he disparity between appearance and reality” (1). There is no doubt that Austen’s novels are not only utilized to support feminist studies, but they can also be applied to postmodern research on the margins of any society around the world, against any form of authoritarian power. This explains why the author has always had and, particularly today, continues to attract such popularity, while academics have dug deep into her novels in every period throughout the last two centuries. As Cohen suggests, the postmodern era seems fated to be in need of Austen, and one can hardly deny that, at the start of the 21st Century, we continue to celebrate Austen as someone whose brave and playful voice triggers discussions on universal issues that matter as much today as they did in her time.