Characteristics of Jane Austen novels

The development of women novelists practically began with Fanny Burney and ends with Jane Austen. Between Jane and the Bronte's, there are no names of vital importance. A host of women writers become quite respectable in its number, And many storytellers who enjoyed good popularity appeared as facile writers Austen remained a great source of inspiration tor many women novelist who emerged in the early period of the nineteenth century Jane Austen was mostly educated at home. Her life was very unexciting.

The chronology of her novel is not easy to follow, because her works were not published in their order of composition. Her first novel was Pride and Prejudice, In it as in her other works, she shows middle-class people and their temperament. The heroine (Elizabeth) is a girl of spirit but she has no extra-ordinary quality. The novel deals with the family relationship. It is an autobiographical novel dealing with problems of married life.

The novelist shows love, understanding, sympathy and fellow-feeling should be the bond of the marriage bed and not necessarily money and property. n the beginning of the novel the hero is shown to have pride and the heroine is prejudiced. But towards the end of the novel, they compromise with their pride and prejudice. The novelist shows a softening in their emotions. Austen's style in the novel is smooth and delicate.

Her other novels Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma etc followed the same general lines as their predecessor. The incidents of her novels are commonplace and the characters are flatly average. However, her treatment is deft. She most subtly and artistically deals with the issues of her novel. 

Features of her novel: Her skilfully constructed plots are mostly unromantic. Even the trivial incidents of life take place in her novel. For example- she describes an incident of elopement in her Pride and Prejudice. Life in her novel is governed by an easy decorum and moments of passionate feeling and deep emotion hardly occur.

Her characters of the novels are developed with minuteness and accuracy. They are ordinary people with individual characteristics. Her characters are not types but individual. Her method of portrayal is based on acute observation of life. Jane Austen male characters have a certain softness and temper but her female characters are almost unexceptionable in the perfection of finish. 

Her place in the history of fiction is remarkable. Austen has won her way to a foremost play which she has kept steadily. Northanger Abbey is her posthumous publication which illustrates her clear and careful style, her skill in handling conversation and the irony of her method.

In the history of English fiction, Austen's contribution is immense. She has some important novels to her credit which deals with the life and expectations of the woman in relation to social progress. Her novel reveals the liberation of women in matters of love and marriage.

Of the different kinds of prose composition, the novel showed the most marked development during the early period of the nineteenth century. This was largely due to the work of Scott and Jane Austen who respectively established the historical and domestic types of novel. Scott raised the historical novel to the rank of one of the major kinds of literature.

He brought to its knowledge and through the gift of knowledge he made it true to life. He fired historical characters with living energy. He set on foot the device of the unhistorical hero, he made the chief character purely fictitious and caused the historical persons to rotate about it. He established a style that suited many periods of history.

He was a great and genial personality who could transform novel into an artistic product of truth and beauty. On the other hand, Miss Austen's achievement was of a different kind. She revealed the beauty and interest that underlie ordinary affairs. She displayed an infinite variety of common life. She opened a new literary style which her successors followed and took to a satisfactory climax.

Top Questions About Jane Austen

👉What is the major characteristics of Jane Austen novels?

Answer: Main Characteristics of Jane Austen novels are-

1. Matrimony

2. Humour and Irony

3. Melodramatic Incidents

4. Detachment.

5. Limited Range.

6. A Realist

👉What are the six Jane Austen novels?

1. Sense and Sensibility

2. Pride and Prejudice

3. Mansfield Park

4. Emma

5. Northanger Abbey

6. Persuasion

👉The literary style of Jane Austen

1. Parody

2. Burlesque

3. Irony

4. Free indirect speech

5. Degree of realism