"A study of Social Rituals, by which I mean events like balls, dinners, evening parties and visits, will help us understand how Jane Austen viewed her society."
Indeed, David Monaghan is correct in his assessment of the imprint of social life in Jane Austen's novels. The social thrust of her novels is made clear by the type of communities in which she chooses to locate them and by the extremely selective way in which these communities are populated. With the exception of 'Emma' in which the action only once strays beyond the confines of Highbury, she does not in fact, stick rigidly to this one type of setting. Nevertheless, Jane Austen is faithful to the spirit of the dictum. Her major characters may move away from the village, but it is within these settings that their values are shaped and their future lies. Thus, the centre of her novels' world are its Bartons, Longbourns, Pemberleys and Mansfield Parks, Not its Londons and Baths.
As Jane Austen herself says about the characters in a novel- "Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on." In selecting the 'three or four families' around which her representations of village life were to be constructed, Jane Austen did not attempt to present a demographically accurate cross-section but rather to give emphasis to these groups which her contemporaries regarded as most important.
Consequently, her heroines and heroes almost all came from the ranks of the landowners, particularly the gentry-the class to which Jane Austen herself belonged, because these provided society with its moral leadership. The middle classes were not granted any independent moral role, but were expected simply to follow the example set by the landowners. For this reason Austen gives them rather less attention. However, they were important to her because she realised that they had developed an alternative bourgeois ethic that posed a serious threat to the moral authority of the landed classes. Among the most important areJohn Isabella, Lucy and Ann Steele, Mrs Bennet, Mr. Gardiner and Mrs Elton. The lower orders in the 18th century were considered too ignorant to have any conception of the general welfare. Thus, servants, shopkeepers and gypsies appear only on the fringes of Austen's novels and play a little part in the main action.
Jane Austen is obviously not a rebel in the depiction of her characters, but as an intrinsic realist, she depicts her chosen world as it is. It is to this merit in her writings that Compton Rickett praises-"Her compass is not great, but within it she never fails." In a positve way, Austen's characters are distinguished in accordance with the rightness and fineness of their feelings and taste, and taste is a moral quality. The novels have very few characters who enjoy the author's or the reader's entire approvals and her comedies of manners have far more edged satire than unalloyed humor.
It is a prime necessity for readers of Jane Austen to learn her language and not be misled by its smooth surface. She has relatively little interest in her characters' physical appearance, but the language they use is a continual revelation of their cultural and moral standing. Characters who unthinkingly reflect the common values of their world use words with looseness or wrongness that indicate their more or less serious deficiencies. But the author, and the characters she presents as thoughtful and right-minded, use such terms- simple or complex- with conscious, intelligent correctness and they carry the weight of moral, cultural and social tradition and taste.
Indeed, David Monaghan is correct in his assessment of the imprint of social life in Jane Austen's novels. The social thrust of her novels is made clear by the type of communities in which she chooses to locate them and by the extremely selective way in which these communities are populated. With the exception of 'Emma' in which the action only once strays beyond the confines of Highbury, she does not in fact, stick rigidly to this one type of setting. Nevertheless, Jane Austen is faithful to the spirit of the dictum. Her major characters may move away from the village, but it is within these settings that their values are shaped and their future lies. Thus, the centre of her novels' world are its Bartons, Longbourns, Pemberleys and Mansfield Parks, Not its Londons and Baths.
As Jane Austen herself says about the characters in a novel- "Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on." In selecting the 'three or four families' around which her representations of village life were to be constructed, Jane Austen did not attempt to present a demographically accurate cross-section but rather to give emphasis to these groups which her contemporaries regarded as most important.
Consequently, her heroines and heroes almost all came from the ranks of the landowners, particularly the gentry-the class to which Jane Austen herself belonged, because these provided society with its moral leadership. The middle classes were not granted any independent moral role, but were expected simply to follow the example set by the landowners. For this reason Austen gives them rather less attention. However, they were important to her because she realised that they had developed an alternative bourgeois ethic that posed a serious threat to the moral authority of the landed classes. Among the most important areJohn Isabella, Lucy and Ann Steele, Mrs Bennet, Mr. Gardiner and Mrs Elton. The lower orders in the 18th century were considered too ignorant to have any conception of the general welfare. Thus, servants, shopkeepers and gypsies appear only on the fringes of Austen's novels and play a little part in the main action.
Jane Austen is obviously not a rebel in the depiction of her characters, but as an intrinsic realist, she depicts her chosen world as it is. It is to this merit in her writings that Compton Rickett praises-"Her compass is not great, but within it she never fails." In a positve way, Austen's characters are distinguished in accordance with the rightness and fineness of their feelings and taste, and taste is a moral quality. The novels have very few characters who enjoy the author's or the reader's entire approvals and her comedies of manners have far more edged satire than unalloyed humor.
It is a prime necessity for readers of Jane Austen to learn her language and not be misled by its smooth surface. She has relatively little interest in her characters' physical appearance, but the language they use is a continual revelation of their cultural and moral standing. Characters who unthinkingly reflect the common values of their world use words with looseness or wrongness that indicate their more or less serious deficiencies. But the author, and the characters she presents as thoughtful and right-minded, use such terms- simple or complex- with conscious, intelligent correctness and they carry the weight of moral, cultural and social tradition and taste.
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