Jane Austen as a Novelist | Jane Austen Romanticism and Realism, Jane Austen as a Domestic Novelist

 

JANE AUSTEN AS A NOVELIST

Austen as a Supreme Artist

Austen’s Feminism

Austen’s Realism, Humour, Satire

Austen’s Art of Characterization

Austen’s Art of Plot Construction

 

INTRODUCTION:

 

Jane Austen (1775 -1817) is one of the greatest novelists during the first quarter of the 19th century. She occupies a high place among female novelists of England. Her contribution to the English novel is noteworthy. She was a very careful artist who imparted realism to her novels. She wrote her novels from the feminine point of view. Her six novels reveal her as a realist, a humourist, a feminist and above all a perfect artist.

 

JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS:

 

1.   Sense and Sensibility (1811)

2.   Pride and Prejudice (1813)

3.   Mansfield Park (1814)

4.   Emma (1815)

5.   Northanger Abbey (1817)

6.   Persuasion (1817)

JANE AUSTEN AS A PERFECT ARTIST:

 

W. L. Cross rightly remarked:

 

“She is one of the sincerest examples in our literature 

of art for art’s sake.”

 

Jane Austen is one of the supreme artists of English fiction. She writes and rewrites and revises her draft of novels before publication. Nothing is found in her novels which do not contribute to the development of the actions and characters. She has the habit of casting and re-casting her material and she believes in the perfection of form and presentation. S. D. Neill avers in this regard:

 

“It is not, therefore, surprising that the final versions of her novels have a formal perfection – no loose ends, no padding, no characterization for its own sake, and a flawlessly consistent idiom suited to the person who used it.”

 

LIMITED RANGE:

Austen is known to have introduced a limited range of themes or subject matters in her novels. This is because she is a regional novelist as Thomas Hardy was. Austen takes her material from her own life; she does not go outside her experience. The scenes in her novels are mostly from South England where she spent most of her life. She writes about the country families, clergymen and naval officers. Their chief interest was matrimony. She chooses themes within the range of her own life and experience

 

JANE AUSTEN’S FEMINISM:

One of the common themes that runs throughout all her novels is the inequality faced by women. It is observed that two men are never left together in her novels. There are always ladies present. The stories of all events are told from a woman’s point of view. While her novels show unhappy marriages (like that of the Bennets in Pride and Prejudice), she is optimistic enough to suggest that it may be possible to find equality inside marriage.

 

Austen’s heroines are independent women who share ideals in a male-dominated society. In her novels she expresses the feminist feelings of her time. Austen’s heroines are unique women who try to stand up for themselves in a society which is an ideal of feminism.

 

Elinor Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot are ideal women characters who can contribute to the society as a whole. In Persuasion, Anne Elliot learns to make her own choice which is an ideal of feminism. Through Elizabeth Bennet, for example, Austen shows the struggle of a woman’s capacity for intelligence and identifying herself.

 

In ‘Pride and Prejudice’ too Austen gives the message that all women should get formal education.

 

JANE AUSTEN’S REALISM, HUMOUR AND SATIRE:

 

W. L. Lucas observes regarding the element of realism in Jane Austen’s novels:

 

“She was a realist. She gave anew to the novel an art and style which once had had, particularly in Fielding, 

but it had since lost.”            

 

Austen’s novels focus on the middle classes of society. Her novels revolve around the stories of family, friends, parent and children. She has expressed the issues of love and marriage realistically in all her novels. That is the reason why an American writer Henry Longfellow admitted that Jane’s writings were “a capital picture of real life”. 

 

Moreover, her novels are categorized as novels of manners also. It is because they deal with the manners, customs and follies of her limited social circle. We get an immense use of satire and humour in all her novels. Her attitude towards life is that of a gentle humorist. Austen is seldom satirical. Her satire is always gentle.

 

AUSTEN’S ART OF CHARACTERISATION:

 

One of the greatest qualities of a novelist is his power to create living characters and Jane Austen possesses this quality. She has been acclaimed as a supreme artist just because of her art of characterization is. Her characters are minutely portrayed and well described. She creates living characters. They are the mixture of virtues and vices like real human beings. They are not types but individuals. Her male characters have some softness of temper, but her female characters are the most perfect. That's why in her novel we find feminine atmosphere. Austen has created many memorable characters like Darcy, Elizabeth, Emma and John Thrope etc.

AUSTEN’S ART OF PLOT CONSTRUCTION:

 

Austen's great skill lies in her plot construction. Her novels have an exactness of structure and symmetry of form. Her plots are not simple but compound. All her stories are faultlessly constructed. They move in a way of natural growth. Every character and every incident is necessary for the development of plot. In 'Pride and Prejudice' plot is the chief interest. W. L. Cross rightly remarked:

 

“’Emma’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ are as logically constructed as a detective story; yet they give us all the sense of spontaneous life we get from a play of Chekhov.”

 

 CONCLUSION:

 

Helena Kelly writes about the dominance of Jane Austen as a novelist:

“Two hundred years on, her work is astonishingly popular. 

It’s difficult to think of any other novelist who could be 

compared with her.”

 

“Jane wasn’t a genius—inspired, unthinking; she was an artist. She compared herself to a miniature painter; in her work every stroke of the brush, every word, every character name and every line of poetry quoted, every location, matters.”

 

Thus Jane Austen is undoubtedly the greatest woman novelist of the early 19^th century. He has realistically painted the Southern English life and manners in all her six novels. Also known as a feminist writer, she has drawn some memorable female characters. She is a supreme artist in terms of art of characterization and plot construction.

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