Austen Powers And Characters Essay, Research Paper

Having a strong heart like Elinor and a latent sense similar to Marianne, Jane

Austen displayed her characteristics through her characters. Elinor and Marianne

were two main characters that Jane Austen used to display her true character.

Elinor is very devoted to her family and tries to do everything she can to

support them. Every now and then, when the family is in need of advice, they

would all look to Elinor. Marianne was the younger daughter in the family of

three sisters and she is always caught up in romantic poetry. At one time in the

novel, Marianne went through a catastrophe because the love of her life had left

her. Marianne tries to hide her fear to avoid all her distress. (Austen 288)

Both of the character?s lifestyle reflected that of Jane Austens?. In the

writing of the novel Sense and Sensibility, Austen wrote the novel according to

her own passionate feelings. People began to notice her writings towards the end

of her life. Jane Austen?s lifestyle and characteristics were revealed through

her characters Marianne and Elinor in her novel Sense and Sensibility. Jane

Austen began writing novels when she was in her early twenties, she was a very

intellectual women. She enjoyed reading many books in her life that gave her an

advantage in writing great novels. When Austen wrote the novel Sense and

Sensibility, much of her characteristics were seen through the novel. ?Jane

Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface.

She stimulates us to supply what is not there.? (Woolf 19) After Willouby?s

sudden break up with Marianne, many deep vivid emotions are shown to the reader.

Austen lived in a society where women mostly worked on farms. Agriculture was

the largest employment for women. (Weldon 36) While other women were out working

on the fields, Austen would be at home diligently thinking about more ideas for

her novels. Later as the years passed, Jane Austen became an author for writing

novels. From then on, her occupation was to be a magnificent writer. She wrote

many books that dealt with her very own lifestyles and emotions. It was not

until her death when she began to notice her success in writing novels. One

important thing that she could put before her writing was her family. Austen,

the seventh of eight children and was ardent towards her family. Her family

needed all the help they could receive because her father had passed away. In

the beginning of the novel Sense and Sensibility, Mr. Dashwood died and had no

choice but to give his will to his first son and nothing to the rest of the

family. Although Jane Austen was not married, she had great romantic feelings

and ideas. Austen used Marianne as a character in her novel Sense and

Sensibility, to present her feelings of romanticism. Through out the novel,

Marianne usually spoke of Shakespeare?s poetry. Marianne is a lady who is very

imaginary and superficial about her dreams. She is all caught up on the romantic

part of life. (Austen 311) Always being caught up in poetry or another romantic

thought, Marianne rarely becomes inconsiderate about what is happening around

her. Marianne cares about her family a lot and does not become selfish when

there is a problem. The resemblance of Austen and Marianne was that the two of

them had romantic feelings and dreams. They also lived their lives as being

poor. Both Austen and Marianne are very dedicated to their family. Happiness

will come to the ones who wait patiently for their dreams or goals. Marianne

fell deeply in love with a man named John Willoughby. She looked at John like he

was the guy of her dreams because he shared the same interest as she did. During

the time the two were together, everything was very merry. But as soon as

John?s family discovered he was going out with a woman who was without a

dowry, they threaten to take his wealth away if he sees her again. After this

occurred, Marianne began to go in the state of depression. Being broken hearted

for the rest of her life, she thought, it was not soon until she realizes whom

she should have been dating in the first place. She started a new relationship

with an old close friend, Colonel Brandon. Marianne lived a happy life after

all, as she met the man she could learn to love and Austen discovered her joy in

her writing. (Austen 305) Jane Austen was devoted to her family all the time and

so was Elinor to hers. Elinor was the oldest sister of three daughters from the

Dashwood family, and was the most reliable one of all. Whenever there was a

dilemma, she would be the responsible daughter and handle the problem. Elinor is

a strong women, she was accountable for her duties. (Litz 78) Austen portrays

her characteristics with Elinor?s by the way they both act when there was a

crisis. Every woman has their own responsibilities that they must take care of.

Austen?s tasks were to be obedient to her family and at the same time to be a

writer. One similarity that Austen and Elinor had was, the two of them had a

great difficulty with men. Austen was never married and wrote romantic novels.

She created the character ?Elinor? to display the side of her that fear for

men. Where there were parties held, Austen would be fond of dancing but never

could really speak to a man because she was too shy. (Austen 308) Even though

Austen was very smart, she never really got the chance to speak to guys because

of her family ties, but using Elinor in her novel to display her feelings toward

men, she could achieve her dreams through her writings. (Wilson 39) The lifstyle

of Jane Austen was incorporated into her writings so she may express her

feelings without saying them out loud. Austen?s lifestyle was no different

from anyone else?s life in the early 1800s. The only thing that was different

about Austen was that she became a popular author. People in her society were

very strict and were lawful. This was a big influence for Jane Austen because

she was able to see what was going on in her society. (Harding 48) She did not

live on the easy streets of life; she lived her life like a slave. Women were

not paid much working on farms because of the fact that they were females.

Growing up in a harsh society was during the early 1800s, when there were no

roads and people got hung for stealing. (Weldon 36) Austen grew up knowing what

was right from wrong. Being poor as she was, in her novel Sense and Sensibility

she related her life in the shoes of the Dashwood?s family. At the same time

when her father died, she used this idea in her novel to show how the

Dashwood?s became poor like she was. (Mercer 309) In writing a novel, Jane

Austen used many imaginative thoughts and profound feelings of her own to

describe her personality. Austen described what ever she was writing about with

a lot of meaning and sense. ?Jane Austen does not expound feelings; she

conrveys it. With her artist?s instinct, she knows that exposition by the

writer destroys conviction in the reader.? (Farrer 39) If she had a character

in a field of plain grass, she would detail her scenery with many objects and

write about her character with romantic ironic information. Jane Austen thorough

describes her characters so the reader would not forget them. (Mercer 307) She

would try to expand the reader?s mind with many details so the reader does not

forget what is happening in the novel. ?Jane Austen has a certain style of

writing that she kept to, ?dealt in pictures of domestic life in country

villages.?? (Watt 42) She even had a certain way of writing that differed

from other authors. This is why she is such a great creative writer. She knows

what she is going to write about from the beginning. Austen illustrated her

feelings through her characters in her novel Sense and Sensibility. In the

beginning of Austen?s career, she was said to be a good writer, but she knew

that she could do better. Writing more and more novels, Austen went through a

maturing stage in writing the novel Sense and Sensibility. She has gone through

two different types of stages of writing and has been successful for writing the

ways she does. ? Of all great writers Jane Austen is the most evocative, doing

in half a dozen words (applied in exactly the proper measures, in exactly the

proper place) what the sedulous subtleties of Henry James are unable to convey

so clearly in as many fine-spun pages. And among the secrets of Jane austen?s

inexhaustible charm is that her work, especially in her second period, is so

packd with such minute and far-reaching felicities that the thousandth reading

of ?Emma? or ?Persuasion? will be certain to reveal to you a handful of

such brilliant jewels unnoticed before?? (Farrer 39) Growing up in a society

with morals, Jane Austen did not write novels with sex scenes in them. She wrote

a lot of her novels base on romanticism. Her writings of romanticism were center

on how she felt. In reality her love life was not there because of family ties,

but in her novel, she could go on with her hearts desires. ?Jane Austen has no

passion, preaches on gospel, grinds no axe; standing aloof from the world, she

sees it, on the whole, as silly.? (Farrer 39) Many of her writings are all

from her imaginations that she constructed with her past experiences. All her

dreams came alive in the novels that she has written, but in reality she was

still a single women. Jane Austen lived her life as a great successful writer.

Before she could celebrate her glory, she passed away. ?The most perfect

artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal, died ?just as she was

beginning to feel confidence in her own success.?? (Woolf 24) Revealing her

character traits through the characters in her novel, she was able to share with

the readers her dreams and her desires of her heart. Austen is a romantic type

of women, but she does not present herself like that. By using the character of

Marianne, she is able to fulfill that spot of character trait of herself in

which she is not able to show off in reality. Also by displaying her strong will

and responsible quality, she chooses a character such as Elinor to show this

feature of her. Jane Austen?s imagination is unbelievable, because of the way

she describes her characters and the sceneries in her novel. Extremely precise,

the readers have no questions to ask what the scenery is like. She lets the

reader imagine just as if they were in the story and show how beautiful the

scenes are. (Watt 42) Furthermore, Austens uses her own writing techniques to

achieve her goals to let her readers dream about her novels. ?Exactly how this

miracle is achieved is, of course, Miss Austen?s secret. It is a secret of

language and of artistry, which can be profitably explored by the reader, and of

a particular kind imagination.? Readers wonder how Austen gets her thoughts,

and the answer is, she used her past and present experiences. Moreover, Austen

portrayed her traits into her characters to show her inner feelings of how she

truly is in her heart.