Changing Seasons: The Cyclical and the Linear

Abstract

In Chap. 2, I analyse the phenomenon of the changing seasons in relation to other cycles. All of Austen’s novels integrate hitherto unrecognized natural-cultural cycles: the cycle of human life, the cycle of the changing seasons, the agricultural cycle, the liturgical and calendar cycle, the cycle of the social seasons, and the social cycle of everyday life. These different cycles are superposed or fitted into each other. Thus, Austen’s plots have an internal rhythm in which the changing seasons intertwine with the other cycles and with linear events. The reader follows one of the most important and transformative years in the lives of the novels’ main characters. All the heroines go over the threshold that separates an unmarried girl from a married woman, which brings the major change in their social status. But before they get there, the female, as well as the male characters go through a psychological transformation, which often closely mirrors the changing seasons.