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Assignment: Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Jane Austen presents her novel heroines as outliers in Regency Britain's patriarchal

culture. For example, in Pride and Prejudice (1813), Elizabeth Bennet opted to marry for love
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rather than for financial stability, which is a clear violation of traditional female ideals. Due to

severe inheritance rules, women are unable to inherit their families' assets and must rely on

marriage for reliance (or, as some critics claim, independency) and financial security. Jane

Austen is one of the rare critics who openly opposes the patriarchal notion of a perfect woman

who serves the male. She adopts Mary Wollstonecraft's vision of a successful woman. I will

analyze the arguments of five different critics of Jane Austen's works in this annotated

bibliography, highlighting the fundamental ideas that they feel Austen was attempting to convey

via the characterization and personality of her characters. Some arguments will overlap, and I

will draw attention to the similarities and differences in critics' interpretations in order to build a

more comprehensive picture of Jane Austen's liberal feminist ideas of marriage in the novels'

social settings, and a close examination of the heroines will reveal that they represent rather

unconventional views of marriage.

Brown, Lloyd W. (1973). Jane Austen and the Feminist Tradition. Nineteenth-Century

Fiction, (28)3, 321-338.

Brown stated that the female images in Jane Austen's works should be examined in

relation to the liberationist ideology of the "Feminist tradition" in Mary Wollstonecraft's earlier

writings, which addressed problems regarding female roles and marriage at the period. Her

topics are compared to 18th-century feminism, in which certain male beliefs about the other sex

are challenged. Brown uses an example from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to illustrate the

concept of an accomplished lady, comparing the decorative ideal with Wollstonecraft's demands

for moral and intellectual perfection. By considering the heroines in Persuasion and Northanger

Abbey, Brown concludes Austen is sympathetic to the feminist revolt, arguing that Austen's
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concentration on the failures in marriage is best understood in relation to her skepticism about

the male definitions of female emotions, sexuality, education, and modesty. It is wise to note

Brown did not emphasize on the political economics that forced such standards to be acquired.

Marriage was not about sexual dependency but also shared aspects of economic necessity and

class hierarchy which pushed women to forgo their race for love. Though I agree Austen was

trying to advance her visions, we should not forget the society Austen's heroines were in and

how that sparked this movement.

Fraiman, Susan. (1995). Jane Austen and Edward Said: Gender, Culture, and

Imperialism. Critical Inquiry, (21)4, 805-821.

Fraiman's work (1995) is a rebuttal to Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism

(1993), which argued that Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1815) demonstrated the author's open

indifference for European colonialism. What's fascinating about this piece is that Fraiman used

the slave trade in Mansfield as a metaphor for the gender battle that was taking on in England,

rather than casting comments on the political debate surrounding slavery. Austen is using the

word "barbarity" on purpose (not literal slavery in the West Indies but the paternal practices of

traditionalists like Sir Thomas) to criticize it and contrast the hardship of women in the

patriarchal society with the rights of African slaves in Mansfield Park. The deplorable situation

of Mansfield Park, as well as Sir Thomas' "domestic tyrannies" were compared to slavery, with

Fanny Price caught in the midst. His treatment of Fanny and his daughters could be seen as

patriarchs treating women as second-class citizens, while Fanny's rejection of Sir Thomas and

her proclamation of love for Edmund in defiance of social norms could be seen as Austen

arranging her disagreements against gender stereotypes. Comparing Mansfield to the slave trade,
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on the other hand, does not imply that we should ignore other types of slavery; rather, it initiates

a discussion about how the British Empire should treat its many people with humanity. Fraiman's

illustration is good, but her arguments ignore the effects of foreign revolutions that sparked the

feminist movement in Austen's time, as depicted by Sheehan, and I believe that analyzing the

historical events that revolutionized these ideas can help us better understand Austen's heroine

illustrations.

Fraiman, Susan. (2010). The Liberation of Elizabeth Bennet in Joe Wright’s Pride and

Prejudice. Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, (31)1.

"Features an Elizabeth Bennet with substantial latitude to exercise her piratical tendencies

—a representation at variance with Austen's darker view of female growth as, in large part, the

violent suppression of these," Fraiman argued. She believed, and I agree, that the film failed to

properly portray Austen's struggle for feminist beliefs because the director "Releases her from

the intricate social concerns-and more bludgeoning economic ones," and how the director

"Releases her from the intricate social concerns-and more bludgeoning economic ones." Austen

was a scathing critic of oppressive societal standards, particularly when it came to romance and

marriage, since she felt women should be treated as logical equals to men, something the film

clearly ignored. The scene in which Elizabeth and the Gardiners wander through the public

rooms of Pemberley and gaze upon a woman completely covered and veiled, referencing

Elizabeth's virginity and Lydia's understanding of female desire, was highlighted by Fraiman as a

more debatable view of Elizabeth's fate and closer to Austen's feminist realism. However,

Fraiman's arguments would have been stronger if she had followed Brown's advice to examine
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female representations in connection to the philosophy of the "Feminist tradition" in the writings

of Wollstonecraft, whose beliefs impacted Austen's heroines.

Newman, Karen. (1983) Can This Marriage Be Saved: Jane Austen Makes Sense of an

Ending. ELH, (50)4, 693-710.

When we examine the endings, Newman believes we will see a sarcastic self-awareness

that underscores the contrast between the tenderness of Austen's comedic finishes and the

realism of her perspective of marriage and women's rights. "Our conventional expectations are

frequently realized but at the same time undercut by self-consciousness and mockery," Newman

said of Austen's works. What we enjoy about Austen's novels is that the heroines live forcefully

within the constraints imposed by ideology, allowing us to reframe what we conceive of as

power and to see that a woman's freedom in Austen is more than just the ability to mock

masculine norms of behavior. Despite Elizabeth's poor connections and transgressions of

women's accepted standards, Austen had her marry in Pride and Prejudice, and in doing so, she

distorts the historical and economic reality of marriage that her work so strongly conveys.

Austen is both regressive and revolutionary in her approach to women's exclusion from political

power and activity. Jane Austen's sense of order was influenced by the revolutions in France and

America, and her resolve for gender equality, which echoed Wollstonecraft's dreams, reveals her

revolutionary side. Instead, I would argue that the acts of the characters throughout the novel

influenced our perspectives on Austen's values in both a conventional and progressive sense, and

that the conclusions are only results of her convictions.

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Swords, Barbara W. (1988). Woman’s Place' in Jane Austen's England. Persuasions #10.

21 (22), Jane Austen Society of North America, 76- 82.

The center of Swords' argument is upon how Austen represented a "woman's place" in

her novels. She noted that historians would define a "Woman's station" as "very low," with little

economic and legal rights and legal protections that vanish when a woman marries. Though we

can still understand this "universally known reality" in Austen's books, we can discern drastic

shifts in attitudes: marriage was starting to be considered as a lifetime joyful partnership based

on mutual love, as shown in several of her writings, rather than a conventional family bond.

Education is a "woman's place" in Jane Austen's books. Her books demonstrate that she

disagreed with many of society's assumptions about women; she portrayed her heroines as

having both the brains and moral aptitude that could be developed via adequate education.

"Equality rather than subservience, on love rather than subordination," her heroines educate

themselves. Swords' paper is intriguing in that she delves into the historical implications of

Austen's works and ideas, as well as how prior events impact the characters in her novels, as

exemplified by Sheehan, and how studying history helps us better grasp Austen's liberalism

ideology.