ENGL 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Claire Grogan, Amelia Opie, James Fordyce
9 Jan 2017
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Also establishes the parameters for the 19th century debates about fiction. Women in her period were generally educated at home, unless they were of high social status. Had a governess or attended a boarding school. Taught to sew, music, arts that would make you marriageable material. Wrote realistically about the way people behaved in public, and the pressures, particularly women faced in early 19th c britain. Austen"s female protagonists tend to be young and naive characters, learning to read other people and see through initial prejudices, sensitive, intelligent, rich intellectual lives. Intelligent female protagonists struggling to find three things (in order of importance. A relationship in which they are both loved and respected (respected = find a way to live where they can reach integrity with their husband) A way of living in which they can achieve intellectual and emotional integrity: they can be themselves. All 3 need to be achieved by the female protagonist.
