Literally the only three things you need to know about Jane Austen
1. Her first major novel (Northanger Abbey) was written solely because she was so salty about how dramatic and cliche and formula Gothic novels were. You know what I mean. Every castle is foreboding. Every villain is awful but can’t bring himself to kill the heroine because she’s Too Pure. Every middle-aged female companion wants to do the heroine in. The heroine is Pure and Perfect and Is Good At Everything Young Women Should Be and recites quotes and/or the Bible whenever she’s in danger and that makes everything better. All butlers are evil. Jane Austen wrote a book specifically to go “THIS is how NORMAL people react to things!!!”
2. “She never changed her opinion about books or men”
3. “As a girl she wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances” and you know what that means. Jane Austen started off writing smut fanfiction. If that’s not writing reassurement that you can be great no matter what you choose to write, I don’t know what is.
(Both quotes from the Penguin Classics version of Northanger Abbey)
4. She wrote often and vehemently about older men taking romantic advantage of impressionable teenage girls. In Mansfield Park the buildup is how awful it is that men prey on teenage girls for fun, and when those girls are very not interested and state it loudly for all to hear they are completely ignored by everyone including their families who just say “you’ll like him eventually, stop being so rude.” This happens also in Northanger Abbey when a guy manipulates and borderline forces the main teenage character into courting him when she makes it widely known she’s not interested.
In both Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice a teenage girl is the prey of an older man who has no real interest in her and completely intends on having his fun and walking away. This kind of thing only affected the woman in that era, “ruining” her while he got to walk away unscathed.
Austen may not have beat sexists and pedophiles to death literally, but she was definitely out for blood.
