Jane Austen Research Paper

A man that somehow seems to understand a woman even in the slightest way seems to be a rare commodity these days and most women would probably attest to that being true. Even though women tend to just put on a smile and learn to live with the men in their lives, things seem to have been like this for a long time and have hardly changed. Maybe it is just something that defies how different males and females are, but maybe it is something more that has yet to be figured out. In nineteenth century Britain, where the novel Emma by Jane Austen takes place, it is well-known that women were suppressed, criticized, and expected to be submissive. However, in her novel, Austen focuses not on the roles placed on women in this society; rather, she emphasizes …show more content…
Austen’s family opened an all-boys school that had seven bedrooms and three attics to teach and house the boys in Hampshire, in order to gain more income to successfully support their large family. Jane and her sister, Cassandra, attended an all-girls school in Oxford for one year, but their time there was cut short when they both contracted typhoid, a highly contagious bacterial disease that was very common for the time (Hindley, “The Mysterious MISS AUSTEN”). After being nursed back to health in their home and having made a full recovery they attended Ms. La Tournell’s Ladies Boarding School in Reading for another year (Hindley, “The Mysterious MISS AUSTEN”). When the year ended, both of the girls did not return to school, which marked the end of their educational careers when Jane was only ten years …show more content…
Emma’s power that she felt from within her heart could have come from her personal experiences similar to Austen. However, it did not come from where she stood socially in society simply because she was a woman. Although Emma, her family, and friends were wealthy for the time, she would still be criticized because of her gender. As the novel continues, it is later revealed that Austen used minor characters to examine major ones and female agency aided in Emma’s matchmaking and later, the marriage proposals for her friends (Campbell, “Finding Austen: The Covert Gender Politics in Emma’s Marriage Plots). The addition of a second narrator taking over in the novel interrupted the strong feminism that displayed how women were seen as unequal to men (Campbell, “Finding Austen: The Covert Gender Politics in Emma’s Marriage Plots). Since feminism was declared throughout nineteenth century and in Emma, it stood out in Emma’s thoughts when she would mention how she longed for men to be different and her hopes of one day being respected by men. With the bias towards women, there was not much time for them to express how they felt. For instance, Austen wrote, “[y]oung ladies should take care of themselves. Young