Victorian Morality And Conduct Jane Austen S Representation

In 1753, the earl of Chesterfield writes to his son that in his whole life, he was never able to meet a woman possessing reason or consideration, or behaving consequently for twenty-four hours. In his view, sensible men do only dally with women as they in truth do only possess two passions: love and vanity.This study examines Jane Austen ́s representation of morality and conduct in her two novels ‘Mansfield Park’ (1814) and ‘Persuasion’ (1818) by the use of the conduct books read and used by the people of the Victorian time.

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,7, University of Hildesheim (Institut für englische Literatur und Sprache), course: -, language: English, abstract: This master thesis examines Jane Austen ́s representation of morality and conduct in her two novels Mansfield Park (1814) and Persuasion (1818), as these two novels reflect the notion of the named aspects during the English Regency Period and Victorian time. Morality is a term describing the inner, partly learned notions. Conduct describes the shown behaviour of a person, determinable by their actions. Thus, this thesis examines the human inner and outer values during the English Regency and the Victorian period. The heroines of said novels, Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, are Austen ́s two heroines not appearing strong and autonomous from the beginning on, but developing to become so. This is the reason for these two Austen novels being chosen. By their use, the behaviour and expectations towards other people during this period are shown. A view upon the notion of women ́s nature in those times is given from time to time to complete the picture. This is necessary to examine if the notion of a woman ́s conduct is aimed to be understood.Men and women possessed conducts, standards and moralities to accept and to live after, these being examined in this thesis.Various conduct-books of that time are used to prove the novels to be exemplary for the conduct and morality during the Regency period, one of them being Sermons to Young Women by James Fordyce, the book Mr. Collins uses to read to and bore the Bennett sisters in Austen ́s Pride and Prejudice (published 1813). Another conduct book used is An Enquiry to the Duties of the Female Sex by Thomas Gisborne (1801), a book given to Jane Austen by her (often rather conservative) sister Cassandra. A Father ́s Legacy to His Daughter by Dr. Gregory (1774/2012) was so well known in Austen ́s time that other authors of various conduct-books assumed the knowledge of this book for their writings. There is a good case to believe that this book was a part of Austen ́s father ́s bibliography. The Habits Of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies And Gentlemen, written by an anonymous author (1872/2012), provides a different, because broader view on the topic. The different situations where morality and conduct may differ in the said novels are divided into love, family, faith, conduct and the public life to achieve lucidity in this thesis.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,3, University of Hildesheim (Institut für englische Literatur und Sprache), course: -, language: English, abstract: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (Austen 1813/1994: 5) The famous opening sentence of the even more famous novel anticipates the majority of Pride and Prejudice ́s content. This Bachelor thesis examines Jane Austen ́s representation of marriage in her novel Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813 in England during the Regency Period. Pride and Prejudice contains every sort of marriage a person like Jane Austen could imagine in those days: matched marriages, concerned of “making a good match”, the romantic love marriages including marrying under one ́s social rank, and the disastrous incident of lovers eloping.

Jane Austen is often associated with conservatism and her novels are often seen as light entertainment depicting a vanished world and its manners. Mary Evan's study, first published in 1987, seeks to contradict the conventional wisdom regarding Austen's social and political leanings and argues that far from endorsing established and conservative views Jane Austen advances a radical critique of the morality of bourgeois capitalism and demonstrates a concern for the articulation of women's rights and views whilst simultaneously drawing attention to the vulnerability of women in the economic marketplace. Mary Evans adopts a multidisciplinary approach and her book will appeal to anyone who is interested in Jane Austen's writing as well as those concerned with the moral basis of contemporary politics.

Jane Austen’s six complete novels and her juvenilia are examined in the context of civil society and gender. Steiner’s study uses a variety of contexts to appraise Austen’s work: Scottish Enlightenment theories of societal development, early-Romantic discourses on gender roles, modern sociological theories on the civilizing process.

For Austen, a person's social behavior is the external manifestation of his internal moral character. What is the relationship between the conventionally accepted rules of propriety of Austen's era, and a morally valid standard of social behavior?

In Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood, Alison Sulloway offers a comprehensive vision of Austen as a moderate feminist.