Jane Austen’s Implicit Feminist Literary Narrative: Breaking the Norms

Abstract

This paper was conducted to apprise and depict Jane Austen’s feminist thought, highlighting the depiction of women in the contemporary Regency era and her fiction. For the study, first-hand data was acquired from the corpus of Austen’s literary narrative in the shape of dialogues and conversations among characters. For data analysis, the textual analysis tool was used. Data was analyzed under the feminist critical theory. The findings of the study show that Austen’s novels like Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility demonstrate female characters facing multiple moral and social restrictions. Being in an open conflict with the prevalent cultural and social attitude, they struggled for autonomy and feminine identity in society. In the course of this fight with the social structures, they underwent grave tests and situations, perfecting them morally and socially. Austen’s novels echo the idea of women being the foundational feminist element of her literary narrative. She has drawn heroines who were intelligent, strong, and autonomous. All these were the features of feminist ideal women. Besides, the findings also reveal the fact that feminine consciousness is reflected in Austen's earlier novels. Through her narrative, she struggled to change the attitude of contemporary society towards the institution of marriage, female inheritance, women’s education, etc., which are prime social problems.