Austen Presents Mr And Mrs John Dashwood example essay topic

The Role of Women in 18th and 19th Century Literature The role of women in literature has typically been influenced by their role in society. In the 18th and 19th centuries their role in society began to change. Women began their transformation from anonymous objects of their fathers' and husbands' possession into animate, productive members of society. This change was reflected in the literature of the time, regardless of the gender of the author, and in a variety of genres and styles. Whether a light-hearted novel, a commentary on industrialization, or a play, women were ever-present in literary pieces.

They appeared more educated, more intelligent, and more independent than ever before. They went against conventions and formed their own opinions. This movement toward the liberation of literary representations of women is portrayed in such well-known and widely regarded literary works as Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Charles Dickens's Hard Times and Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously in 1811 by Jane Austen herself, at a time when women were not only regarded as intellectual inferiors of men, but were expected to remain such. They were thought to be too feeble-minded to be educated and were expected to live their lives for the sole purpose of catering to their husbands' and children's needs (Monaghan 42). Austen, rejecting this common assumption, portrays women as valuable members of society.

"Jane Austen's attitude to women, ... while growing directly out of the social and philosophical environment in which she lived reveal the workings of a keen individual intelligence... She takes a clear-sighted look at the functions performed by women and finds that, regardless of the very low esteem in which their sex is held, they are given a role substantial enough to satisfy the needs of such intelligent and capable people as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood" (Monaghan 50). In her thinking, Austen is not attempting to start a liberation movement, or even to illustrate one. She simply shows that by performing their duties in their limited realm, women play an important role in maintaining society and preventing it from crumbling. ."..

For all Jane Austen's sense of female worth, nowhere in her novels... does she [express] discontent at the woman's restricted role. None of her heroines has any ambition to be admitted into the professions, to manage an estate or to join the army. Instead, they concentrate their energies into the world of manners until, at the conclusion of the novels, they add to this the concerns of marriage" (Monaghan 46-47). "Austen condemns meekness in her women characters and believes that they are indeed capable of learning and should be educated... by concerning themselves with manners and educating their children properly, women foster a moral society and preserve its stability, and they make great contributions as skillful managers of their households" (Monaghan 42). In fact, the main role of women in Jane Austen's novels is household management.

She mercilessly pokes fun at Mrs. Dashwood's inability to be a successful household manager. When Mrs. Dashwood talks of her plan to make certain alterations in the cottage, Austen sarcastically says: "In the mean time, till all these alterations could be made from the savings of an income of 500 a-year by a woman who never saved in her life, they were wise enough to be contented with the house as it was" (Austen 25). The duty of introducing some method into the family's dealings, therefore, falls on Elinor, the novel's most admirable character. It is Elinor who makes the decision to sell Mrs. Dashwood's carriage and limit the number of their servants to only three when they decide to move to Barton Cottage from their more elaborate residence at Norland (Austen 22). Another point related to the treatment and behavior of women made in Sense and Sensibility is the importance of the existence of mutual respect between a husband and wife.

When a wife is overindulgent towards her husband, there appears "the kind of imbalance that characterizes the Palmers' relationship in Sense and Sensibility. The more Mrs. Palmer remains good-natured in the face of her husband's display of childish bad temper, the more excessive and self-indulgent his conduct becomes" (Monaghan 45). Elinor is even noted to wonder at "Charlotte's being so happy without a cause, at Mr. Palmer's acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange unsuitableness which often exists between husband and wife" (Austen 101). In sharp contrast to the relationship between the Palmers, Austen presents Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood.

Mr. Dashwood pretends to make the financial decisions for the family. However, his wife sways his decisions and makes him conform to her wishes very easily. She's the one who really has all the decision-making power in the household (Austen 7). It's obvious that this other extreme is not better than the previous one because it causes Mr. Dashwood to neglect his sisters and stepmother. Charles Dickens's commentary on the evils of industrialization, Hard Times, first published in 1854, presents women as the heroes of the story. The two main female characters, Sissy and Louisa, are responsible for showing the evils of the fact-based education of Mr. Gradgrind's school.

They accomplish this by resisting this kind of education, as in Sissy's case, or making a conscious decision to renounce it, as Louisa finally does. It seems that Sissy is the only one who, from the start, will not submit to a life dedicated to cold, hard facts. From the beginning, she is actually frightened and bewildered by being forced to see things that way (Dickens 7). Although she wants to please her benefactor, Mr. Gradgrind, her heart is too kind and she is too sensitive to be able to ignore her emotions. She is swayed too much by her sympathy for other people to be able to look at the world simply in terms of numbers and figures (Dickens 52-53, 54-55). Louisa, Mr. Gradgrind's daughter, who used to be one of the model students in his school, learns to regard facts so highly, that she seems to lose her ability to feel.

However, she is the only character to combine her strict adherence to facts with her unconditional love for her brother. The reader feels the most admiration and sympathy for her because she sacrifices her life, without really realizing it until the end, to pleasing her father and brother, by marrying Mr. Bounderby. When as a teenager, she describes the factories of Coke town at night, she might as well be speaking of herself evolving throughout the book: "there seems to be nothing there, but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet, when the night comes, fire bursts out, Father!" (Epstein 269; Dickens 93). Just like the fire in the furnaces of these factories, Louisa's emotions lay dormant and hidden until they finally burst forth in the end.

In Dickens's book, the female characters are the ones who end up trying to save everyone else. As Professor James R. Kincaid points out, the women in Hard Times, much like many of the women in his other works are "competent, strong, and working well against enormous forces" (qty. in Epstein 131-132). They are wiser than the men are in that they see things more clearly and they are also more resourceful and composed when it comes to acting in crisis situations. Louisa is the first to realize that Tom is actually the bank robber, despite his efforts to incriminate Stephen Blackpool (Dickens 177,257). When Stephen is accused of the bank robbery, Rachael is the only one who can clear his name and she takes up that task as her duty (Dickens 233). When everyone else learns of Tom's guilt, Sissy is the first one to get to him to warn him of the danger that he is now in and to direct him to safety (Dickens 255).

In the end, it is these same women, Louisa and Sissy, that try to save Tom from arrest and trial after everyone realizes that he was the bank robber (Dickens 258). Dickens seems so determined to show that the women are not subjugated to the men around them that even the most comical female characters show signs of rebellion. An example of this is Mrs. Gradgrind, whom he describes as a woman of "surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily... and who whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her" (Dickens 14). She is obviously discontent with her life and family situation. More than once, she mentions that she wishes she had not had a family at all (Dickens 16-17, 51). This would have been a shocking idea to the readers of Dickens's day, when the woman's primary role was to raise a family and be a mother and wife.

However, her sentiments were less offensive because of Dickens's warning that she is not the brightest individual. Despite her weak intellectual abilities, she realizes even before her husband the wrong that has been done to Louisa by trying to rid her of all human sentiments. On her deathbed, Mrs. Gradgrind's answer to Louisa, who asks if she's suffering, is that "there's a pain somewhere in the room, but I couldn't positively say I have got it" (Dickens 186). In this same tragic scene she comments on Louisa's and Tom's education by saying that "there's something-not an ology at all-that your father has missed, or forgotten, Louisa. I don't know what it is... I shall never get its name now" (Dickens 187).

Mrs. Spars it is another female character that the reader finds difficult to take seriously. Throughout the book, she seems to be entirely loyal to her boss, Mr. Bounderby. She seems to pity him for all the troubles that befall him, such as the bank robbery and his loveless marriage to Louisa. She addresses him as "my benefactor" to his face. In the end, however, it turns out that her silly servile behavior was all an act. As soon as he is gone and she is left alone with his portrait, she contemptuously tells his image "Serves you right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it" (Dickens 183).

Finally, she surprises the reader with her strength of character and bold convictions by bluntly telling Mr. Bounderby exactly how she feels about him: If that portrait could speak, sir-but it has the advantage over the original of not possessing the power of committing itself and disgusting others-it would testify that a long period has elapsed since I first habitually addressed it as the picture of a Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle does can awaken surprise or indignation; the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire contempt (Dickens 275). In A Doll's House, Ibsen shows the 19th century women of all economic classes being forced to sacrifice themselves to the demands and dehumanizing conditions to which they are subjected by society. In notes made for A Doll's House in 1878, Ibsen mentions that "A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted by men, and with counsel and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view" (qt d. in Finney 90).

Nora, the main character in the book, feels the heavy ramifications of being regarded as an intellectual and legal inferior of her husband. She is a housewife, whose husband seemingly spoils her and whose only responsibility is to keep up the image of an ideal family. When she is no longer able to keep up that image, her husband says that he no longer loves her and that she is not fit to raise their children (Ibsen 62-63). It has been noted that one of the traits possessed by the independent female characters in Ibsen's plays is that "in keeping with their liberated tendencies, these figures typically serve to unmask the lies which shadow the lives of other characters" (Finney 94-95). This is true for both Nora and her friend Mrs. Linde. Nora weaves a web of deceit that begins with her forging her father's signature to get a loan.

She does this in order to save her husband's life, but the side effect of this action is that she must always conceal this debt from him and pay it back on her own. This is especially difficult because Torvald, Nora's husband, is responsible for the financial dealing in their household. Therefore, Nora must always use her charm and her wit to get money from Torvald or from secret jobs and economize wherever possible in order to save that money for her payments (Ibsen 3, 13). At the end of the play, when Torvald learns of this deception, he is furious and reveals himself for what he really is-a selfish, macho male.

Nora sits down with him and objectively discusses all the truth about their marriage, concluding the fact that she can no longer stay with him because their whole marriage until that point was an act, a "playroom", where she has been the "doll wife" (Ibsen 67). Mrs. Linde comes to town in search of a job. Whereas Nora asserts her independence only at the end of the play, Mrs. Linde has been independent and self-reliant all along. She is free from commitment to anyone else and can do as she sees fit.

She is the one who can be held largely responsible for Nora's break with Torvald. She is, therefore, likewise responsible for helping to uncover deception. When Nils Krogstad writes a letter to Torvald, telling him about Nora's criminal act, Mrs. Linde resolves to talk him into requesting to get that letter back. However, when he himself offers to do it, she stops him, explaining that "they must have a complete understanding between them, which is impossible with all this concealment and falsehood going on" (Ibsen 54). Mrs. Linde also confesses to Mr. Krogstad that she had deceived him in the past when the two of them were in love.

She left him in order to marry a wealthier man, telling Krogstad that she no longer loves him. Now, however, she reveals to him that she has loved him all along, but had no choice because she needed money to support her sick mother and her little brothers (Ibsen 51-52). The women of Jane Austen's, Charles Dickens's, and Henrik Ibsen's literary works must work against various restrictions in order to prove their strength of character. These restrictions come from the society that surrounds them, which does not recognize equality between the men and the women in it, as well as from the men, who use the advantage of their gender to oppress and limit these heroines. However, in the face of difficulty and the background of expectations of meekness and subjugation from them, they rise prosperous and strong.

Literature Cited Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. London: Penguin Books, 1995. Dickens, Charles.

Hard Times. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. Epstein, Norrie. "The Erotic Child: Interview with James R. Kincaid".

The Friendly Dickens. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1998. -- -. "Hard Times".

The Friendly Dickens. Finney, Gail. "Ibsen and Feminism". The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll's House". New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1992.

Monaghan, David. "Austen's Women in a Conservative Society". Readings on Jane Austen. San Diego, CA: Green haven Press, 1997..