Now that Now that Jane Austen has her place on the British bank note we can ask: did she espouse feminist values? Previously I had assumed not. Yet, it is an interesting universal truth if you like, once you start looking for something you do invariably find it. Such was the case when reading and re reading the Austen Six. Many examples were found. One example of Austen’s remarkably modern critique of the power structures of the world in which the Austen Six is set is in Persuasion. Continue reading
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Did Austen espouse feminist values?
Filed under Feminism
Did Jane Austen like children?
Jane Austen nephews and nieces (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Some biographers, taking a few letters out of context have assumed she didn’t. Rubbish! Jane Austen was a revered Aunt; she was a loved Aunt; she was a sought-after aunt. You don’t get to be such an aunt if you do not like children. It is just that she didn’t idealise children. In one of her letters to her brother James she says, we saw “a countless number of Postchaises full of Boys pass by yesterday morng – full of Heroes, legislators, Fools & Villains.” In the privileged world in which Jane was an observer, children were often put on pedestals by their affluent parents. It was not so very different from today Continue reading
Filed under Childhood
Austen's Guide to Happiness 