Jane Austen's Heroines

[Padraig]

You could also argue that Fanny overcomes her own timidity and nervousness. From being cowed by the company in which she finds herself, as she grows older she is able to resist when she feels she has to, not be drawn in by other characters to do what they want her to, and to face stern criticism for it...

This rings a bell. The last time I read this novel was about 1970 something and in discussion was the only one who stood up for the redoubtable Fanny Price. I've often meant to reread it, but did not do so. I'm encouraged to do so now to refresh my arguments and perhaps add the coup de grace to ff's staunch defence of one of the true heroines of fiction.

[french frank]

This rings a bell. The last time I read this novel was about 1970 something and in discussion was the only one who stood up for the redoubtable Fanny Price. I've often meant to reread it, but did not do so. I'm encouraged to do so now to refresh my arguments and perhaps add the coup de grace to ff's staunch defence of one of the true heroines of fiction.

Do so! One might say that as Emma gains wisdom, Fanny gains strength.

But since JA clearly approves of Fanny ('she had all the heroism of principle'), it would be JA who was the 'prig.'

[Serial_Apologist]

I found it extremely difficult approaching Jane Austen in my teens, and was glad we weren't set any of her books for O Level English Lit. I still feel reading supposedly recognisable characteristics into characters of 200 years ago from our modern perspectives is maybe more interesting and therefore more revealing of ourselves, the posters on this forum, helping maybe shape the way we deal with each other's disagreements, than revealing of transhistorical character traits, however brilliantly portrayed by their author.

The act of examination is the crux of the matter, rather than deducing moral verities as true of their age rather than for all time, I feel. Circumscribing social and political factors are equally useful: in this case looking at how, impinging on one sector of society in which the rising bourgeoisie intersected with the landed aristocracy's lower echelons shaped social mores, and the first springs of feminist awareness thereby arising. Identifying with one or another of the characters is more difficult, and I don't think we should be troubled by that difficulty. The past really was a different country.

[jean]

Why won't someone change the spelling in the thread title?

[richardfinegold]

Why won't someone change the spelling in the thread title?

Yes, I cringe every time I see my original sin

[richardfinegold]

But I have explained my views even if others haven't . I won't agree that she is sanctimonious unless you quote the novel precisely....

As for 'heroines', surely they must come in all varieties or they are merely stereotypes. I've got withdrawal symptoms now I've finished the novel.


I wonder whether the 'problem' for some readers is that the story is more overtly 'moral' than others of JA's novels? I wouldn't equate that with 'sanctimoniousness' on anyone's part.

She is so uptight about the "play" and how acting is so "disrespectful". Why? What harm could there be in these characters amusing themselves by doing some acting? I mean, it isn't like they had occupations that they would be neglecting

[richardfinegold]

... but the characters in 'Mansfield Park' are tested. Edmund falls very seriously in love with Mary Crawford ; Fanny Price almost succumbs to Henry's genuine attachment, and it is only by means of the deeply moral characters of Fanny and Edmund that they escape the charms of the charming, most charming, Crawfords, who are yet not really worthy of them.

Yes. Fanny is static, and her constancy causes growth in the other characters. I find this type of heroine unique in J.A.

[richardfinegold]

Yes, and that particular aspect does seem fundamentally less interesting to me (but I haven't read Emma for some time). It makes her exasperating rather than endearing. I'm not sure why having to overcome one's own faults is more interesting than overcoming the obstacles placed in one's way.
You could also argue that Fanny overcomes her own timidity and nervousness. From being cowed by the company in which she finds herself, as she grows older she is able to resist when she feels she has to, not be drawn in by other characters to do what they want her to, and to face stern criticism for it...

I've just started Persuasion and see signs of Fanny in Anne Elliott - gentle, always giving way to others, treated as unimportant by her family...

I don't mean to be a plot spoiler if you have only just started to read Persuasion (not that the plot will surprise you much), but Anne Eliot also learns from her mistakes and grows. She was allowed to be persuaded by Lady Russell and her family that she shouldn't follow her heart and pays a heavy price in terms of lost happiness. Given a second chance, she ignores all persuasion and follows her heart.

[Sir Velo]

Why won't someone change the spelling in the thread title?

Only a certain someone can do it.

[Sir Velo]

But since JA clearly approves of Fanny ('she had all the heroism of principle'), it would be JA who was the 'prig.'

Now you're in danger of making the common fallacy of mistaking the narrator's voice for that of the author! If we followed that line of reasoning Nabokov would be a pederast; Conrad a dangerous anarchist and Dickens, one of the most saintly creatures who ever walked the Earth.

However, I think it's instructive that most of JA's heroines who are successful are those who learn to regulate their behaviour and curb any natural boisterousness. There is definitely an element of spinsterish disapproval in the fates which JA allots the most vivacious of her characters (e.g. Marianne) which I find distasteful. Au fond, I think Mrs Austen has the mot juste in describing Fanny as "insipid". She is an intensely "moral" character, but that morality appears to have been swallowed whole and then regurgitated without any sign of inner thought. Things are either right (being deferential to one's elders) or wrong (the theatricals) but are never analysed as such. She lacks the essence of joie de vivre and inner growth which RFG notes in his post, that would make her a more "likeable" character.

[french frank]

Now you're in danger of making the common fallacy of mistaking the narrator's voice for that of the author!

I don't think that's quite what I'm saying - the authorial voice approves of Fanny and her stance. This is quite different from assuming that because she writes of a married woman eloping, she would do so too.

On Fanny, as I initially wrote, you/one (or I for that matter) don't change views by Persuasion - which I have read before, but in the initial pages was struck by AE's similarity to Fanny on the points I mentioned.

I think it's probably a matter of the reader's temperament as to what appeals to them about a character and what doesn't.

As for

Why? What harm could there be in these characters amusing themselves by doing some acting?

Because this play involved the young people behaving ways that they would be condemned for in real life. It was a formal age (evidence everywhere in the 'real life' of the novel) and such behaviour would have been highly disrespectful, at least to the families who would have been concerned about their own reputation - especially when it was proposed to invite in an 'outsider'. It was those who wanted to act in the play who were out of step with the social conventions, not Fanny.


To be honest, although I wrote Austen consistently, I didn't notice the thread title - or I read what I understood it to be. That's why . I myself wrote of 'Anne Elliott', having been reading the book only minutes before ...

[vinteuil]

" ... I turned from Pride and Prejudice to the novel of Jane Austen which I have always preferred above all the others. For I have, of course, my favourite novel ; all her readers have one. We are a sect of zealots, who, like other zealots, are divided into sub-sects animated by a good deal of bitterness against each other. Largest in number, but least discriminating of these, is the one which maintains that Pride and Prejudice is the best of all the novels ; then come a few mild and melancholy admirers of Persuasion ; then the partisans of Emma (a small, but acrimonious body) ; and finally there are the wise and wide-minded, judicious laudators of Mansfield Park. I am myself a Mansfield Parker."

[Logan Pearsall Smith : Reperusals and Re-Collections ]

[french frank]

" ... the wise and wide-minded, judicious laudators of Mansfield Park. I am myself a Mansfield Parker."

[Logan Pearsall Smith : Reperusals and Re-Collections ]

I always enjoyed LPS's 'Quotations', e.g. 'Some people say that life's the thing, but I prefer reading.'

[richardfinegold]

I always enjoyed LPS's 'Quotations', e.g. 'Some people say that life's the thing, but I prefer reading.'

I prefer quoting CDs myself. Less pops and clicks and expanded dynamic range

[richardfinegold]

I started Sense and Sensibility last night, but I think I will give JA a break for a while. I've read Mansfield, Persuasion, Northumberland Abbey and Pride and Prejudice in the last 6 months and Jane and I need a break in our romance. I'm sure that absence will make my heart grow fonder.