11.The realism of Jane Austen s novels Austen (1775-1817) despite of writing in times of romanticism she is one of the leaders of the 19th century realism and is rather anti-romantic. Her works are considered perfect social commentary since she gives very detailed and realistic insight into the society and conventions governing it. She portrays small groups of people in their environment ex. middle class in the province or members of higher classes, striving for good marriage. She presents triviality of social life she could observe herself, her stories are constructed around conversations in living rooms and there is not much action unless someone is talking. Nature of characters emerges through the dialogues. In the background of her novels readers see various customs and convictions of the nineteenth-century England She is not preoccupied with a historical aspect. On the contrary, she depicts domestic sphere with all its social problems, very often drawing attention to the economic problems women had and asserting that women should share the same moral nature as men and have the same kind of individual rights and obligations. Austen s novels are novels of manners, in which the social setting (anything that happen in the living room) is crucial. Dussinger: Perhaps the first English novelist to grasp the full mimetic implications of imitating other language within the text, Austen renders not only numerous talkers who seem to live by words alone but also derisive interlocutors who parody the original comic discourse while addressing yet another stratum of the comic audience. Source: Sikorska, Liliana. A Short History of English Literature Austen is primarily interested in people, not ideas, and her achievement lies in exact presentation of human situations, the delineation of characters who are really living creatures, with faults and virtues mixed as they are in real life. Her plots are straightforward; there is little action. In this, and in her preoccupation with character as opposed to types (the static hero and heroine and villain, beloved of Victorian novelists) she shows herself closer to our own day than any other novelist of the period. (& ) she is not afraid of wasting words in the interest of naturalistic dialogue. Extract from History of English Literature Burgess p 175 In Pride and Prejudice giving insight into society she reveals that: - people are expected to marry, marriage is a contract - women are not allowed to work neither not allowed to inherit after their father, so for women to get married is the financial necessity! 1st sentence of the book: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in a want of a wife that is why women hunt for husband= economic survival; it is clearly visible during the ball which is like a market on which you can display and sell yourself - Girls should be accomplished- be able to sing, play an instrument, speak French and be beautiful as well as obedient to parents and social conventions,- they are more like a decorative element - Falling in love is a convention; people want to think that they are in love- richer means more handsome