Jane Austen Essay -- essays papers

Jane Austen6. How does Mansfield super C interrogate the relationship of power and sexual practice? Mansfield parking lot by Jane Austen is a classic realist schoolbook, which is almost exclusively foc spendd on a scummy strip of society, namely the upper-middle class of rural England the class to which she herself belonged. Throughout her novel, Austen portrays the separate position of woman, presenting the issues of gender stereotyping and marriage choice as the main problems they look at to confront. Gender came to be seen as a construct of society, designed to hurry the smooth-running of society to the advantage of men1, proving that men gained power throughout the socially constructed subordination of woman. Taking a post-structuralist approach to Mansfield Park, we can see that there is a pretence that bourgeois culture is naturalto limit signification in the interests of control, repression and privilege2. Austens writing embodies middle-class values, and por trays an ideology that emphasises patricentric rule, along with social and economic power, with little reference to the hardships of the working class. This text is therefore a form of oppressive ideology, in which women are kept in their socially and sexually subordinate place. When Sir Thomas Bertram discovers that Fanny forget reject Henry Crawfords proposal, the cruelty of antheral power is evident, enforcing the gender role. He does not understand her refusal of a secure marriage, and attempts to change her closure by redefining what she says. Sir Thomas is an authoritative male, and represents the male-dominated system that tries to take control of, and channelize a womans life for her. Although Fanny represents female defense by opposing Sir Thomass judgement, Auste... ...ation to the women, as they can use their influence and power in a good or unsound way. Austen takes the disadvantaged position of women, and analyses sexual stereotypes and prejudices in great deta il. Therefore male power and female helplessness are explored fully in her novels.BibliographyJane Austen, Mansfield Park (Penguin, 1994)Simone De Beavouir, Women and the Other Literature in the new-fashioned World, Dennis Walder (Oxford University Press, 1990)Marilyn Butler, Romantics, Rebels & Reactionaries (Oxford University Press, 1981)Mary Eagleton, Feminist literary Theory A Reader (Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1986)terry cloth Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology (Oxford University Press, 1976)Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory An Introduction, 2nd Ed (Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1996)Dennis Walder, Literature in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 1990)