The Portrayal of Women In Three of Jane Austen's Novels

This book investigates Jane Austen and her writing about issues of women. In Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, Austen criticizes, through her portrayal of the main female characters, the historical moment from a socio-political viewpoint, as well as the society's conventions of her time regarding women. This study examines the use of the classical and modern romance plots and their interactions with the contemporary social problems. In Chapter One, the study analyses Austen's keen sense of the idea of sensibility and the tendency towards its extreme form in her novel, Sense and Sensibility. It focusses on the value of sense and sensibility, portrayed through the two main female characters; Elinor and Marianne. Chapter Two deals with Pride and Prejudice to show how Austen reflects her women's characters, their potentials, and expose how it both fulfils and subverts romantic conventions. It discusses also morality shown through the portrayal of the main women's characters in the novel. Chapter Three examines the issue of marriage in Emma and its nineteenth-century pattern. It examines also women's growth, independence and place in their society.