Jane Austen Critical Analysis

There is a difference between a good book that simply entertains the reader, and a good book that impacts the reader. What an author chooses to focus on in their writing can be the factor that outlines the difference between the two. An author’s style outlines the differences that set them apart from other authors. Writing style is also what defines the author and characterizes their writing. Style often remains unchanged and reflects a writer’s beliefs which are often displayed through their work’s content or theme. In the case of Jane Austen, an eighteenth-nineteenth century novelist, writing style and theme are two things she is most admired and remembered for. Austen’s main themes encompass her views of the roles and values of women, family, and marriage in her era. In addition to this, her opinion of how social status affected each of those also lies within her words. Although there is criticism about what Austen’s writing lacks, there is also praise of her particular style because of her unique method of characterization. “Miss Austen has nothing fervid in her works She is not capable of producing profound agitation in the mind. In many respects this is a limitation of her powers, a deduction from her claims….But the real secret of Miss Austen’s success lies in her having the exquisite gift of dramatic creation of character…instead of telling us what her characters are, and what they feel, she presents the people, and they reveal themselves”(Lewes). Austen’s writing style, which gives structure to her themes, is often characterized by a self-determined female protagonist, and a lack of economic and social equality among men and women.

In Austen’s time, women were viewed as having less significance as far as t...

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Kollmann, Elizabeth. "Jane Austen Re-visited: A Feminist Evaluation of the Longevity and Relevance of the Austen Oeuvre." Thesis. University of Port Elizabeth, 2003. Jane Austen Re-visited: A Feminist Evaluation of the Longevity and Relevance of the Austen Oeuvre. Mary West, Jan. 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2014. .

Lewes, George H. "THE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN." The Novels of Jane Austen by George Henry Lewes. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. .