Jane Austen

Let's talk about her for a while. A lot is being said about her. A lot is being said about her novels. Her novels are called basic romance novels where a man gets the girl! And that is it.

NO! That is not it. There is so much more to that. What Jane Austen did was subtle and powerful. She was a writer in the Victorian Age. She was a woman writer in the Victorian Age. She was a woman writer in the Victorian age who used her own name. She was a woman writer using her own name who ridiculed Victorian women in the Victorian age. See how I slowly built that sentence to demonstrate the volume of what she had done. Think of the mother and the sisters in Pride and Prejudice. They were the exact description of Victorian women but they were so in your face. They were too much. Austen's exaggerated way of depicting these characters was a critique of the society she was living in. And she did that looking right in the eyes of society when many women writers were hesitant to use their own names. That's bold and needs to be applauded. Because let's face it even today how much of us can stand up and say 'NO!' to a wrong that we see in the world. Forget about men and women how much of us can truly say 'I have to stand up to every absurdity I have seen around me.'? I'm not talking about ideologies we believe in, because we all believe in the right thing, of course, but I'm talking about the times we actually left our seats to address the issue. All I'm trying to say is this woman addressed the issue when at a time her holding the pen was seen as the issue.

She did use a certain framework for her works, yes, but she filled them with women who followed their hearts. Love, in Victorian times, was economic. It was money. So, young girls didn't expect to fall in love with a man. They expected to fall in love with a man's salary. However, the characters who chose love ended up finding happiness in her novels. They didn't throw away their pride for money. They stand strong. The protagonists were what society would look down. However, their lovers looked upon. The lovers, who were always wealthy and good-looking, yes. I have one thing to say about that. Very clever, very clever! You can not destroy a century-long mindset with a 1000 long word count. You have to play the psychology card. By creating young girls slightly contradicting with the conventional mindset following their hearts and STILL being able to find rich man warm the minds up towards the idea of love and reminded them where their rusty hearts lies. It shows them another way of finding love. I bet she knew that once those hearts were wide open there was going to be no rich, no poor, nice or bad. Nothing but just those eyes and smiles of that one certain person. If you don't agree with me just read the letters left by her. Once you grasp the slightest idea about her personality from them, you are going to hear her wit next time you're reading one of her novels as well.

Preview picture: Öziş, P., Editör, & Özbaş, G. (n.d.). Jane Austen Kimdir? Sinemaya Uyarlanan Unutulmaz En İyi Filmleri. Retrieved from https://paratic.com/jane-austen-kimdir-filmleri/