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