Transformation in Austens Feminist Ideology - Essay Example

Transformation in Austen’s Feminist Ideology The focus of this paper is on the argument that there seems to be a noticeable shift in Jane Austen’s work, with the progress of her career, as far as her feminist and individualistic ideology is concerned. The two texts which this argument focuses on are that of an analysis of her novels, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice. Also there seem to be undercurrents of admiration over different cognitive qualities in her heroines with the advancement of her work. Persuasion which was Austen’s only novel till today that remains as the most critically neglected one. When it was published it was criticized as being ‘less fortunate’ when compared to her previous work and hence viewed as an inferior adaptation of her usual stories “devoid of invention...obviously all drawn from experience” (The Critical Heritage, 80, 84). André Brink on the other hand described Austen’s body of work as a depiction of the “acute awareness of the position a woman occupies and her efforts to demarcate her own space in a man’s world”. When you look closer at Persuasion, you find it to be one of her most revolutionary and socially fascinating novel simply for the way it depicts the part played by the heroine in the 19th century England. Furthermore it accounts for and supports a philosophy in which actions are solely based upon sentiment, intuition and an individual’s personal happiness. Also, Austen indulgences in a language of allusion through the use of circumstances and characters that draw out her first novel, Pride and Prejudice. This suggests that Austen wants both of these bookends of her career to be in undeviating dialogue with one another so much so that Persuasion is, to a great extend, a revision of Pride and Prejudice. Many of the plot features and character definitions of both these works are similar however the tone and theme of each is astonishingly different. The traces that one sees of Elizabeth in Anne’s character and the parallel frameworks of both these novels go on to elucidate and mark the shift from the emphasis placed on emotion over reason in the tone as well as the feminine worldview of Austen. Looking at her other works to gauge Austen’s emotional development and progression as a writer, while Persuasion most resembles Pride and Prejudice as far as a direct discourse is concerned, her other novels, most particularly Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey provide more insight into the changes her work undergoes as far as the development of the heroine is concerned. Towards the end of her career, Austen’s focus is on the definition of personal happiness and success by a diverse rubric than the one that she focuses on in her novels; In Persuasion the key question of happiness are addressed by Austen in such a way that her influences, such as, the social change in England, the essential part played by family, the literature of Romanticism, and the comparison that can be drawn between the two heroines – Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot. Looking at the contextual framework for Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion their similarities are such that they can be compared side-by-side; however the heroines of these novels demonstrate a very unlike approach to defining their characters. The way Elizabeth’s character traces can be found in that of Anne’s goes to clarify and cement the observable shift in Austen’s overall tone and her worldview of feminism. Take for example the conclusion of Pride and Prejudice, the love Elizabeth confesses for Darcy seems to be a cautiously measured one – Darcy has made appropriate amends to all the wrongs pointed out by Elizabeth in her original refusal and in turn she justifies her own acceptance of him by objectifying her standards. On the other hand, Anne Elliot of Persuasion merely accepts Wentworth not on the basis of any changes he has made or anything he did differently, but simply due to the realization reflecting the validity of her original emotions and motives. The key transformation here is that which Anne develops on her own, so that when she marries Wentworth towards the end, the marriage itself does not serve as an instrument to complete her because she undergoes an emotional transformation on her own. The point here is that these similarities juxtaposed with a noticeable shift in the traits of the female protagonist goes to suggest that Anne Elliot is a different version of Elizabeth Bennet, and that the key purpose of Persuasion is the reinvention of Pride and Prejudice. It is also a reflection of the Austen’s personal perception of values and motives of marriage underlined by the shift in her intellectual and emotional portrayal of Persuasion’s heroine. There also exists a carefully uniform language of allusion in Austen’s works, especially between the two bookends of her career, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, which to some extend serve as a privatized discourse for her own benefit. Through these works she is showing the shift of her ideals, prioritizing the emotional over the reasonable, a depiction of which is clear in the lives of these women. Elizabeth whose “quickness of observation” and wit, make her a champion of women who are capable and reasonable in the world of men, on the other hand Anne’s individualism is equally valuable in the way it validates the worth of female emotions (Kollman, 2003). In the earlier part of Austen’s work the readers can observe how her female protagonist and the supplementary characters are judged primarily on the principle of personal merit being linked to their power and capability to distinguish universal truths. However by the time she works on Persuasion, the shift to a perspective that places great value in the courage it takes to recognize and then act upon private values and instincts. What this means is that what Austen admires about Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice is vastly different from the things she values in Anne in Persuasion. The admiration one feels for Elizabeth is because of how deft and quick she is through the arrogance, stupidity and misguided ideals of her society, and she is a truly kind individual who admires that very trait in others. Anne, on the other hand, comes to an eventual realization of her own sentiments and instincts, and prioritizes her duty to herself and personal happiness over what society defines her place to be due to her family and class. Other changes that the reader notices in Persuasion, is its primary focus on the woman’s point of view, one that is challenged twenty seven years later by Jane Eyre. The narrative style of Persuasion is also more focused on the interior narrative than any of her other works, and the prose is also unique mostly because it focuses on following Anne’s thoughts and perceptions in such a fashion that it comes off as a borderline stream of consciousness. When you compare this to the impeccably and cleverly narrated form of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility’s prose in which even the most personal and sentimental scenes are looked at objectively, even the narrative tone that Austen uses in Persuasion shows a reevaluation of her innate values depicted through the heroine’s emotional life. Frame work of Allusion Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion both resemble each other not only in the factual data but also the issues that they both tackle. In both of them the heroines originally refuse the suitor, something that marks a key plot feature for Austen to make her final point. Furthermore these two refusals, Elizabeth’s and Anne’s, are quiet similar in the way that they lead to the final acts of the novel and prove to be critically important issues for the female protagonists, yet these refusals are an internal struggle for the heroines in the novels. In both the cases only a few other characters in the novel are aware of the rejection that Darcy or Wentworth had undergone or consider the incident as a significant one. Austen compares these two situations between he heroines by keeping the refusal as a personal and insularly monumental one, giving little consideration to the other characters reality. By highlighting the key similarities in the two refusals but differentiating the events that occur post the rejection, Austen goes to show how she is reconsidering the value of Elizabeth’s judgment and situation. Elizabeth’s luck played an important role as her rejection of Darcy only fueled his persistence and desire which quickly led to the union of the characters. Anne, on the other hand, had to wait for years to rectify her mistake. Austen’s reference to Elizabeth’s situation by using Anne’s back-story goes to show the reader how differently she could have written Pride and Prejudice now at the end of her life. Persuasion is hence all about what would have happened if Darcy did not return to propose to Elizabeth right away and its entire plot functions to show the transformation of Austen’s values and ideals. Slavoj Zizek refers to Jane Austen as “the only counterpart to Hegel in literature” mainly because of the way her work uses dialectical progression as an instrument for arriving at a pure truth and understanding the philosophy of human interaction and relationship. This declaration by Zizek is linked to the language of allusion of both these novels mainly because they use a similar Hegelian tool of misrecognition in order to aid the characters in arriving at a deeper understanding of themselves as well as their relationships. The main focus of her work lies in truth that results due to the conflict and crises of misrecognition between the male and female protagonists and not the relationship that would have arisen had the characters, right from the start, been able to recognize and act upon each others innate qualities. Elizabeth and Darcy both misinterpret right from the start, whereas Anne and Wentworth’s issue was not a lack of understanding but Anne’s inability to choose for herself. Austen artfully makes use of this philosophical device in both novels as a medium to evoke the former by former by the latter and put on display how misrecognized she was to put key emphasizes on reason and a sense of reform, when in truth felicity is so closely linked to self awareness and the power of ones own emotions. Another allusory element that both these novels share is that of the presence of a immoral bounty hunting suitor. George Wickham, charming and corrupt, is a lot more malicious as far as intentions and actions are concerned than William Elliot, however both of them share similarities in the way their primary motive to get married was monetary which comes in direct conflict with the female protagonists philosophy of love and respect as far as a making a marital commitment was concerned. Austen through Pride and Prejudice goes to show how based upon serious moral and social reasons a suitor was rejected – both Wickham as well as Collins are clearly unworthy by the rigid standards of Elizabeth Bennet – however in Persuasion, Austen is trying to highlight the critical fact that personal preferences and impressions are sufficient to reject a suitor even if he is socially appropriate. Letters play a vital role in both novels. Both Darcy’s defensive letter and Wentworth’s furtive one are similar in the way they implicitly dialogue with one another. However the purpose that these letters serve in both these novels is vastly different. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth is evidently the turning point of the novel, the motive for change and personal reform in Elizabeth. At the same time the letter brings up issues in the way it insults Elizabeth, her family and her unsuitability. Despite all this, upon receiving the letter, the transformation to overcome her pride, become self aware and hence reciprocate Darcy’s love initiates for Elizabeth. On the other hand, Wentworth’s letter to Anne affectionate and full of compliments, but as far as character development is concerned played no role. By the time Anne receives the letter she has already decided to give Wentworth a chance, and that is the true essence of the novel. The crises and tension which is such a consuming part of Persuasion, is not all about whether Wentworth will come back to Anne, but whether Anne will chose to defy family and social ties which are largely responsible for her rejection of happiness when she was younger. So while both letters serve their purpose in the way they move the plot towards marriage, Elizabeth receiving the letter forms the bases of her progress towards self reflection. In contrast, Anne undergoes that transformation on her own (Tarlson, 2006). The framework of allusion, gives one a brief insight of the transformation that Austen’s values and individualistic theory have undergone by looking at some of the stark contrasts between the undercurrents of her two most critical novels that mark the beginning and end of her career. This comparison goes to highlight how Jane Austen’s life as well as her ideals were anything but static and stony, but that she was in a constant quest to question and amend what she knew and held true about the world. Her final contribution to literature marks the drastic amend of virtues of reason and propriety, which were ranked as ultimate in Pride and Prejudice. Instead, through Persuasion, Austen resolutely asserts that a woman’s ability and courage to admit accept and act upon her passion, sentiments and instincts are what pave the road for her happiness. References Austen, Jane. Persuasion. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1995). Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. (New York: Greenwich House, 1982). Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1984). Brink, Andre. The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. 1998. Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). Kollmon, Elizabeth. Jane Austen Re-visited: A Feminist Evaluation of the Longevity and Relevance of the Austen Oeuvre. Jan 2003. Accessed on 10th November 2011 and retrieved from: http://www.nmmu.ac.za/documents/theses/KollmannE.pdf Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. Jane Austen's Letters. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Southam, B.C., ed. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968). Slavoj Zizek. The Sublime Object of Ideology. (London: Verso, 1989). Tralson, Claire. Jane Austen, Pursuit of happiness. Lethbridge Undergraduate Research Journal. 2006. Volume 1 Number 1. Read More