Jane Austin’s Reformation Tactics

Jane Austin’s Reformation Tactics

Women in middle and upperclass society during the Jane Austin era, were on the most part hidden and unspoken. Prized for their beauty women were significant for their vanity routine yet ridiculed for their vanity. Expected to be pretty, perform and procreate, much of their time was given to catching the eye of the richest man with the highest standards, doomed to an unhappy life following the match, as the husband only delighted in his wife if she remained pretty, continued to perform well and sired a male heir. This unhappiness I believe, does not however originate from the men of society, financed enough to live a lifestyle of lust.

Jane Austin was and is a women’s advocate who’s reformation tactic was true love. Her nuanced stories expose the ‘trueness of things’ capturing the nature and essence of people and the places they lived. She showcases ‘safe society’ through her distraught heroines risking shame and disregard, in order to set the authentic free in the minds and hearts of their peers and onlookers. 

In the 1700’s etiquette secured position beside a man in visible sight, but status below a man in the depths of the invisible minds and hearts of society. This unequal balance created an easy job of keeping women in their place, controlled by a male patriarchy, however with the values of community and co-operation extinguished by the fashionably sought after pride of position and independence, both men and women of the middle and upper-class were cheated of parenting that sufficiently nurtured identity separate from position in society and character based on love, that existed among the working class but nonetheless plagued the poor. 

Not having to work for money deprived many men of the sense of rightful ownership of their estates and inheritances. This unspoken and innate guilt and lack of purpose, through the generations lead to a pride that covered the deep inadequacy of not knowing who they were and their role in society and lead to a culture that fractured the classes to it’s detriment. 

The themes of these fractures and the fabric of society itself are thrashed out with equal dignity and humiliation by Austen in her self-proclaimed autobiographical novels, sometimes carefully, sometimes radically infusing fables as a result of her psychological wrestle-writing. We enjoy the humour and mockery of the pompous and celebrate our own freedom, from the dissemination of the class system, but can we attest to the deep rooted issue of control having been eradicated from our society in the 21st century? 

Austin in Persuasion captures Wentworth's value of Ann as a servant-hearted visionary without bias, recognising the beauty of her character as counter cultural. In Pride and Prejudice, service is expected and under valued with beauty externally defined, Ann however portrays the vulnerabilities of a women’s heart in her natural and true compassion and the beauty a women becomes on the outside when her hidden heart is perceived and pursued. Such a man to desire such a heart, must be a man looking for a woman, not a boy in search of a mother. The male protagonist always yearned for and praised in Austen’s works, is at first illusive and quiet, displaying his firm standing in society yet he refrains from control, deeply compassionate and upholding of peoples honour. He allows himself to be seen in his mistakes as an emotional human being who is not perfect but strives for other’s best, a man who not only recognises and understands community and co-operation but is an emblem of peace and mature leadership, the ultimate counter culture hero. 

Perhaps the cry from feminism today and the journey towards general neutralism stems from a pride driven society where the heart of people is not perceived to its fullest extent and therefore cannot be valued, but function and output is. Maybe the beauty of a man is in his compassion and gentleness and so too is the women’s and when both are equally seen there is freedom to be exactly who they are. Could it then be suggested that an equal society is not achieved by removing the power of men and giving it to women by force if it can be said ‘we are all born with potential but it is our environment that determines our achievement of it’? How wonderful a notion is a society built in authentic love and gratitude of the raw nature and essence of each person and not just the expected perception of acceptable behaviour, defined by those who believe they have power. How futile and destructive the mission of power when creativity in society comes from the beauty of the heart. What then must give to create such a culture? True love and true grace must be what we run after.

In the Jane Austin era of control by men, it is clear that trueness of a woman was a threat, for the men themselves were victims of a lack of love and control in tormented existence to conform themselves:

Unable to love who they truly were, they were imprisoned by their own hearts unable to truly love another. And if control through words and actions of etiquette and refine, kept all who obliged a prisoner, after the voice of rebellion sets the captives free, there is required one to lead all who were once prisoner into liberty. 

If no new way is set, modelled or shown but a voice is made known, there is every reason to expect a revolution that reverts back to the same control. But if one who stands strong can lead the way, in the opposite tone, in humble action not just voice alone, the new system emerges - the way of the heart, no longer compromise but a brand new start. 

It would seem that it falls to a prisoner who sees the heart of the jailer (who sits at the doors of the prison held captive everyday through keeping watch, both unable to leave) to show a different way and set both of them free. 

There is hope, for in every generation is the same chance to birth something new and far less controlling than the generation before. And perhaps with this emotional evolution of mankind we really can believe in true love after all.

Jane Austin is not only remarkable in her literary and controversial voice of the period but in her recognition of this truth - the prisoners who work behind the scenes, sacrifice themselves, the true opposite of pride, to birth and nurture a society free of pride and founded on love. This principle is captured most eloquently by the term: mother. 

Further reflections on the Jane Austen era in contrast to the 21st Century:

Austen came from money and had a voice, although she was a women. She had fortune and therefore freedom to speak which she used to share the wrestle with her desire to lose it all for the sake of true love. It raises the question are we willing to lose it all for the sake of love and freedom?
A famous quote states “When we are willing to come to the end of ourselves it is there we find ourselves” - maybe life is not in what is expected of us/or what we expect of ourselves, but life is in what is true and letting that which is true but takes life away, die. 

Is a life of joy possible? What is required to live a life of joy? Can we truly be happy if we ignore the longings of the heart or compromise its silent screams? 

[Is what I like really the authentic me? How are my likes formed? How do I identify that which is innate and inherent? Is it just environmental or is it intrinsic and intuitive?]

A society without a voice loses itself, we live in a society of many voices from many sects - do we consider ourselves one? Equal? United? Or are we too, creating a divided society with agreements of separation and individual lifestyles, willing to cut out and ignore that which is different/we don’t understand? Is this really so different from the segregation of women in individual homes and hearts the Jane Austin era? Has the same culture filtered through societal groups in the modern day? Is our issue one of the heart? 

Who is there to protect us from our immature actions in our pain? Are we safe from shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted? Do we as a society believe we are our brothers keeper in matters of the hearts as well as the body and mind? Is it really possible to get something back after we have too quickly made it clear we want it gone?

Only the truth can work such magic, for rule and regime miss what is hidden but secretly admired - only truth can win what is truly desired. Maybe colonialism starts in our hearts with what we desire to conquer and control and the way to damage the world less is to conquer and control ourselves and work towards a desire to work together, valuing within ourselves who we truly are in order to bestow the same curtesy to those who seek to control us because underneath they are ones who don’t truly know who it is that they truly are. As Austin was brave enough with time to make her self truly known - until we are free to be known we cannot be truly loved - only that which we truly show can be fully seen and truly loved. 

If men are protectors then it is right that a woman’s vulnerability and care be at the control of a man - it is his power to control and conquer on coming danger, that keeps a woman safe. It is his choice to lay his control down that sets a woman free. It is not the potential of humans that is our danger, for it is the choice of how we use this potential that brings life or brings death. The eradication of power takes away all potential but the taming the mind that takes away all of the danger. 

Is it right that a woman’s destiny be in the hands of the men in her family? Father, brother, uncle, husband? She holds the power of the destiny of the men in her life too. Her nature and nurture set a man up or leave him in lack, her care makes him able or exposes him as prey.

In our enlightened society with greater freedom and greater choice, no longer agreeing upon marriage for pride or privilege, we have a chance not to live solely for our bodies or mind, but mind and body in balance with the heart.

To love one’s enemy is to rewrite the narrative and the predicted trajectory of the next generation.