This thesis compares a book by Mary Wollstonecraft to a book by Rebecca Solnit. Both books are related to feminism and their depiction of feminism will be explored. As Wollstonecraft's book was...Show moreThis thesis compares a book by Mary Wollstonecraft to a book by Rebecca Solnit. Both books are related to feminism and their depiction of feminism will be explored. As Wollstonecraft's book was written in 1792 it will show the earliest notions of female independence, this will then be compared to a book written in 2014 by Solnit. It will look at whether feminism has progressed in any way, and if the issues raised by Wollstonecraft are still seen as relevant by Solnit over two hundred years later.Show less
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that many research papers, books and articles have been written about Jane Austen. Ever since Mary Lascelles put Austen studies firmly on the map with her...Show moreIt is a truth universally acknowledged, that many research papers, books and articles have been written about Jane Austen. Ever since Mary Lascelles put Austen studies firmly on the map with her 1937 publication Jane Austen and Her Art, there have been ongoing debates about Austen, led by academics like Janet Todd, Deirdre Le Faye, and David Selwyn. One of these debates is about whether or not she should be called a (proto)feminist writer, and authors such as Miriam Ascarelli, Margaret Kirkham, and Claudia L. Johnson have contributed a lot to this subject. This thesis aims to show that Austen was a radical author for her time, who displays some very proto-feministic views in her novels. To prove that Austen was a proto-feminist author, this thesis will analyse Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, and relate these novels to the views and opinions of one of the first proto-feminists, Mary Wollstonecraft, written down in Vindication of the Rights of Woman.Show less
In this thesis, I am going to interrogate what might be meant by ‘feminism’ in the 1810s, what Austen might have understood by it, what we now understand by it and how we might apply those ideas to...Show moreIn this thesis, I am going to interrogate what might be meant by ‘feminism’ in the 1810s, what Austen might have understood by it, what we now understand by it and how we might apply those ideas to Austen’s fictions. I shall argue that, although Austen uses the rather conservative genre of the courtship novel, or according to Marilyn Butler, the conservative partisan novel, she employs this genre to subversively express her radical ideas (Butler 3). I shall explore the idea that Austen rarely made her views explicit in her work, due to the prejudice that was attached to feminist opinions at the time due to the life story of Mary Wollstonecraft; I shall trace the effect of Wollstonecraft’s biography on Austen in the next chapter. By investigating different aspects of the family in Austen’s novels, I shall demonstrate how Austen did express her ‘feminist’ opinions through her works, albeit subversively. In particular, I shall examine the weakness of authority figures in her novels. The weakness of these authority figures allows Austen’s heroines to exert more power and therefore have a greater sense of their own agency. I shall further argue that Austen employs the weakness of authority figures in her novels to inspire more feminist behaviour in her heroines, who are not the ‘perfect’ image of Georgian femininity but are nevertheless, as is clear to the reader, favoured over the other characters by Austen. I attempt to show that Austen’s ‘feminist’ tendencies can be seen in her praising her heroines beyond all other characters while these are the characters that display the most agency and therefore are seen to possess ‘masculine’ properties.Show less
